Two or three days later came a hasty scrawl from Mrs. Mackenzie, telling little or no news, and merely hoping that Euphrasia would enjoy her visit. After which followed silence. Mrs. Mackenzie did not write again. Mr. Mackenzie did not write at all; and Mrs. Landor sent only a line on Parish matters. Ken and Flo were equally remiss. Absence of home letters made easier the keeping of her secret, since she too could thus be silent, without causing particular remark. But the state of things was unusual, and she fretted over it a good deal. During her long absences at school, letters had been frequent and regular. She could only conjecture now that her father was not well, and that they would not write for fear of having to say what might shadow her pleasure. As for her own silence—doubtless they would think that she was selfishly so enjoying herself as to forget to write. "But I must bear that for a little while. They will soon know," she said. Days crept by with such desperate slowness that a week seemed like a month. And the silence therefore appeared a great deal longer than it really was. Euphrasia did not allow for this fact. Improvement in the injured knee was slow, so slow that she sometimes wondered if it improved at all. At the end of a week, she was allowed to be moved to a small sofa, which the doctor ordered to be brought to her room, and from this sofa she could gain glimpses of the outside world through the window. But the unwelcome trouble to others involved by even so slight a change pressed upon Euphrasia's mind, and destroyed her pleasure in it. "To have to be such a bother!" she said. Yet she could not do without the help. Her restless young spirit chafed under her own incapacity to stand or move about alone. One day, nearly a fortnight after the accident, she lay alone on the sofa, looking out wearily into a blaze of sunshine. She could just see the square tower of the old Parish Church beyond and away from the further end of the Crescent; and a sound of bells came thence, ringing merrily. It was almost half-past two. And Mrs. Johnston and Letitia were gone to a wedding which would be immediately taking place. Euphrasia did not expect their return till late in the afternoon, since a "reception" was to follow the wedding. "So much the better!" she said. "If they come up here to see me, it is only because they think they must. And I hate to be a disagreeable duty to anybody!" Nevertheless, she felt somewhat forlorn in her dull little room, with the bright sunshine and gay bell-ringing outside. And the afternoon seemed long to get through. Nobody had thought of bringing her a book to while away the tedious hours. And true still to her resolution of making no needless requests, she would not ask for one. A copy of "Hymns Ancient and Modern" was the sole volume within reach, almost the sole volume in her room. No bookcase was here, and Euphrasia had brought no books with her.