“I ain’t said _nothing_!” the other stormed. “Folks tells lies. I don’t know what’s got into people. They ain’t got no idea about the truth no more. What business they got telling tales about my little honey, saying she ain’t coming to see me no more? They don’t know,” she spoke mysteriously, “but I’m expecting her most any day now. She’ll come to me soon, my baby’ll come soon to her old Tannie.” Her tone changed, she looked up at Julie, and spoke with a pathetic dignity, “I’m looking for a visit from my little niece,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was to come to-day.” She made the statement defiantly, yet there lurked in her eyes an anguish of entreaty that implored Julie to confirm her. “Why, yes, indeed!” Julie answered eagerly. “Why, yes, she’s liable to come almost any day now.” “But she _don’t_ come! She don’t come! Oh, my baby! My honey! I want to see you so bad!” Once more the old woman began to rock herself to and fro hopelessly. “But she will come! She’ll come soon now,” Julie promised. Old Miss Fogg gazed up into her face, her mouth hanging open and tremulous with eagerness, as she gathered encouragement from Julie’s assurance. Then her eyes wandered away over the room. “But look!” she cried. “If she was to come, how’m I going to see her in this pigsty? I ought to fix up; but I ain’t got the heart--I ain’t even got the heart to wash my face,” she confessed looking at Julie piteously, the slow impotent tears gathering in her eyes. “Never mind, never mind,” Julie comforted her quickly. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll fix it all up for you. You lie down now,” she coaxed. “Lie down and rest a while, an’ I’ll get things straight.” To her surprise the old woman yielded, and let herself be helped back into bed, where exhausted by all her storms of emotion, she fell asleep almost immediately. That was the beginning of Julie Rose’s friendship with old Miss Fogg. Thereafter, as the days went by, tenderly, persistently, baffled sometimes by the old woman’s outbreaks of rage and suspicion, or worse still by the terrible inertia of depression which constantly settled over her, Julie gradually won her way further and further with the other, and by the sheer indomitable persistency of her compassion managed to drag her back occasionally almost to the shore of normal life. At least her room and her person were clean and in order, and Julie saw to it that she had regular meals--dainty little lunches cooked by herself. Sometimes she was rewarded by an outburst of gratitude, that usually ended in tears. “You’re good!” the old woman would cry seizing Julie’s hand convulsively. “I don’t know what you want to be so good to a poor old wreck like me for.” But sometimes she pushed her food away, and refused to eat. “What’s the use of eatin’?” she would weep. “Oh my Lord! What’s the use of _anything_ in this world? Oh, I wish’t I was dead! But I ain’t even got ambition enough to die!”