"Of course it has--there ain't a good fire in the hull house. It takes Mrs. Hawley all the time to tend the door and tell the folks we don't want their help, and when the funeral will be;--I tell ye, we ain't hardly had a mite of rest since the doctor was brought home." "Tell Miss Hawley I'll be down there in five minutes," said Daddy decidedly. "It don't make much difference whether he's here or not," said Mrs. Hawley, when Sorrel Top had delivered his message. "O he'll be handy to talk," replied Sorrel Top with a grim smile. "Tween you an' me, it ain't no time fur to be jokin," said Daddy, who had come in time to catch a few words, and had a suspicion of what was passing between the women, "I guess," he continued "if you could see how broke down the Honey is, you'd begin to think it was a serious matter." "We do already think it a very serious matter, Daddy," said Mrs. Hawley with great feeling, and I wish Miss DeWolf would let me do something for her." "Taint no use saying a word to her, I don't open my head when I go into the room, but I'd lay down my life fur to ease her," said Daddy the tears coming to his eyes. "Tween you and me, it ain't no common trouble workin' on the pet," he said, coming close to the two and speaking low, "I've knowed her sence she was a baby, I've seen all of her putty ways, and none of her bad ways, fur she never had none; she hes growd up perfect and she allers treated the doctor dutiful, and she's got nothin' to reproach herself fur. I'm afered," and he sank his voice to a whisper, "the Honey has got a separate trouble." "What that trouble was Daddy did not define for he was interrupted by a knock at the door, which he opened and ushered in the Sherman family. "Tween you and me, the Honey ain't spoke nor slept, nor eat," said Daddy, in answer to Mrs. Sherman's enquiry after Little Wolf, "but maybe it will ease her a leetle to know that you are here," he said, looking sideways at Edward. Daddy fidgeted around Little Wolf for several moments, before he could muster courage to break the silence, and tell her who were waiting below, and he almost regretted having done so, when he saw the look of agony, which the information brought to her face. "Daddy," said she in a choking voice, "ask Mrs. Sherman to my room, the others will excuse me to-day." It was some alleviation to Edward's disappointment, as he rode home with Louise, to know that his mother was to be Little Wolf's companion and consoler until the arrival of her old friends, the Tinknors, who had been sent for, to be present at the funeral. During the few days they were together, Mrs. Sherman strove by every means she could devise to give her young friend some relief from the distress of mind, under which it was evident she was laboring. But she was at length obliged to return home, leaving to Mrs. Tinknor's skill the trying case, which had baffled her own benevolent efforts.