That was why I didn’t look when the door opened one day last week. I was thinking of all the Head had said about backsets, and how, when they ended, I would come out of them more and more quickly, and they’d be farther and farther apart; and I was wondering how fast I’d go, once I had finished with this one. When the door opened I hadn’t the energy to spare for talking—I needed it for my cheerful speculations. But, instead of going away, my visitor came quietly in. Then I heard a little gasp, a soft rustle beside me, and little warm hands caught mine—Caro’s hands! She was there on her knees, her face hidden in the bedclothes, and crying as if her heart would break! Caro crying was a sight to galvanize a graven image: I sat up straight in the bed and drew her to me. “Dear, what is it?” I implored. “Tell me quick: I’ll fix it!” She bubbled with laughter as she caught me in her arms and eased me back on the pillow, dropping a tear and a kiss on my nose. “You darling! If you were at your own funeral and heard one of us crying, you’d hop right up and straighten things out for us, wouldn’t you? There’s not a thing the matter with me except I’ve been so homesick for you all winter I couldn’t stand it any longer: and now I’m crying because I’m so glad I’m home.” “But Caro——” “Don’t ‘Caro’ me and don’t ‘but’ me, for I’ve come to stay. Mammy Lil, you’re an accomplished liar; but when your writing kept looking like chicken-tracks, I knew better than to believe a word of your sprawly, rickety tales that trailed all over the sheet. And I _hate_ music. And besides, I can drive the family to drink with what I know already.” “But Daddy Jack, dear, and Cousin Jane.” Caro laughed again. “Daddy Jack says he wrote for me yesterday—after I’d started, all by my smart self. And I’ll tell Cousin Jane after a while. She’ll have something brand-new to lecture us about for the next twenty-five years. I feel like Carnegie and Rockefeller rolled into one: it isn’t often she gets the benefaction of an enormity like this, is it?” It had been a cloudy morning, dark, and wet with the night’s rain; but now the sunlight swept across the hills and up from the branch, and struck through the soft colors shimmering about the trees like rainbows in a mist. The Peon and David tiptoed in, beaming. “You’d better let us go by and break the news to them at Cousin Chad’s,” said David; “you’ll get a shock over the ’phone if they aren’t prepared.” “I’m going over there this afternoon,” said Caro calmly. “I’m going all by myself and engineer Cousin Jane through the boiling-over process; she’ll be all right when she settles down to a simmer. Now get out, both of you: Mammy Lil and I want to rest.”