Old Lizzie cleaned the fish and Lydia fried them, with the daintiness and skill that seemed to have been born in her. She laid an envelope at her father's plate and when he sat down, silent and abstracted, without heeding the fish, she shook her head at Lizzie who was about to protest. "Where'd this come from?" he asked, absentmindedly opening the envelope. Then, "For God's sake! Lydia--where? how?" "It was like this," said Lydia. "Set the fish back to warm, while I explain, Lizzie. It was like this--" and she gave a full history of her morning's visit, to her two speechless listeners. "And I ran all the way to the lake and I skated like the wind, and I never told Lizzie a word, though I nearly busted!" Amos looked from Lydia to Lizzie, from Lizzie to Lydia. "Lydia--my little daughter--" he faltered. The tears flew to Lydia's eyes and she spoke hastily, "Lizzie, show him the fish we caught!" Amos smiled while he shook his head. "I won't forget it, Lydia. In spite of little Patience's going, you've taken ten years off me this night. What do you suppose John Levine will say?" "He'll say," replied Lydia, taking her serving of fish, "'If you were ten years older, Lydia, and I were ten years younger,' and I'll say--'then we'd travel.'" CHAPTER V ADAM "A thousand deaths have fed my roots--yet to what end?"--_The Murmuring Pine_. The days slipped by, as days will, even though they are grief laden. Slowly and inarticulately for the most part, Lydia struggled to adjust herself to her new loss. She went back to school, after the quarantine was lifted and the familiar routine there helped her. She was a good student and was doing well in the eighth grade. During school hours her books absorbed her, and she worried through the evenings reading or sewing, with Florence Dombey always in her lap. Florence Dombey was a great comfort to the child. She slept at night with her black head beside Lydia's yellow one. Sometimes she slipped into the middle of the bed and fat Lizzie rolled on her and woke with a groan. "I'd just as soon sleep with a cannon-ball at my back," the good soul told Lydia. But she never uttered a more violent protest. Lydia never entered the locked bedroom off the kitchen. Amos, self-absorbed and over-worked, asked no questions, but one night in April, John Levine saw Lydia at work on a night dress for Florence Dombey. "Where does the young lady sleep?" he asked. Lydia explained and Lizzie uttered her mild plaint, adding, "Lydia ought to be getting back to her own bed, now warm weather will be coming in."