"That queer Dolly knew!" thought Chase. "But perhaps they've talked about it?" He asked this question aloud. "Have you told your daughter that, ma'am?" "Told my poor Dolly? Of course not. Please go to breakfast, Mr. Chase; I am sure it is ready." Chase went to the dining-room. A moment later Dolly came in to pour out the coffee. "Is there anything I can do for you this morning?" Chase asked, as he took a piece of Zoe's hot corn-bread. "I am going to drive over to Old Fort this afternoon, and wait there for Ruth, for I've calculated the trains, and I reckon that she and Hill will reach there to-morrow." Dolly looked at him for a moment. Then she said: "You have a great deal of influence with Genevieve; perhaps you could make her understand that for the present it is better that she should not try to see mother. Tell her that mother is much more broken than she was yesterday; tell her that she is very nervous; tell her, in short, anything you please, provided it keeps her away!" Dolly added, suddenly giving up her long effort to hide her bitter dislike. Chase glanced at her, and said nothing; he ate his corn-bread, and finished his first cup of coffee in silence. Then, as she poured out the second, he said: "Well, she might keep away entirely? She might leave Asheville? She has a brother in St. Louis, and she likes the place, I know; I've heard her say so. If her property here could be taken off her hands--at a good valuation--and if a well-arranged, well-furnished house could be provided for her there, near her brother, I guess she'd go. I even guess she'd go pretty quick," he added; "she'd be a long sight happier there than here." For though he had no especial affection for Genevieve, he at least liked her better than he liked Dolly. Dolly, however, was indifferent to his liking or his disliking. "_Oh!_" she said, her gaze growing vague in the intensity of her wish, "if it could only be done!" Then her brow contracted, she pushed her plate away. "But we cannot possibly be so much indebted to you--I mean so much _more_ indebted." "You needn't count yourself in, if it worries you," Chase answered with his deliberate utterance. "For I should be doing it principally for Ruth, you know. When she comes, the first thing she'll want to do, of course, is to make her mother comfortable. And if Gen's clearing out, root and branch, will help that, I rather guess Ruth can fix it." "You mean that _you_ can." "Well, we're one; I don't think that even _you_ can quite break that up yet," Chase answered, ironically. Then he went on in a gentler tone: "I want to do everything I can for your mother. She has always been very kind to me." And Dolly was perfectly well aware that, as he looked at her (looked at her yellow, scowling face), his feeling for her had become simply pity, pity for the sickly old maid whom no one could possibly please--not even her sweet young sister.