Well, I should say it did! I quit living, and began thinking in a hooray, and so did every one else at our house. Once I had been sick and queened it over them for a while, now all of us strained ourselves trying to wait on Shelley; but she wouldn't have it. She only said she was tired to death, to let her rest, and she turned her face to the wall and lay there. Once she said she never wanted to see a city again so long as she lived. When mother told her about Laddie and the Princess to try to interest her, she never said a word; I doubted if she even listened. Father and mother looked at each other, when they thought no one would see, and their eyes sent big, anxious questions flashing back and forth. I made up my mind I'd keep awake that night and hear what they said, if I had to take pins to bed with me and stick myself. Once mother said to Shelley that she was going to send for Dr. Fenner, and she answered: "All right, if you need him. Don't you dare for me! I'll not see him. All I want is a little peace and rest." The idea! Not one of us ever had spoken to mother like that before in all our born days. I held my breath to see what she would do, but she didn't seem to have heard it, or to notice how rude it had been. Well, THAT told about as plain as anything what we had on our hands. I wandered around and NOW there was no trouble about thinking things. They came in such a jumble I could get no sense from them; but one big black thought came over, and over, and over, and wouldn't be put away. It just stood, stayed, forced you, and made you look it in the face. If Shelley weren't stopped quickly she was going up on the hill with the little fever and whooping cough sisters. There it was! You could try to think other things, to play, to work, to talk it down in the pulpit, to sing it out in a tree, to slide down the haystack away from it--there it stayed! And every glimpse you had of Shelley made it surer.