She smoothed down her disordered garments, and dusted off her grimy palms, before venturing to search, in the darkness, for the bell. She found it readily enough, but it was some time before she heard the chain-bolt withdrawn from within, a key turned in a resisting lock, a door unlatched. Then, the door swung open inward, on its heavy hinges, and Martha found herself face to face with what she described next day to Cora as, "the livin’ image o’ that marble statute in the Metropolitan Museum, down home. The girl in the flowin’ robes, holdin’ a queer-lookin’ thing, which its own mother wouldn’t reco’nize it for a lamp, in her hand. You told me her name. Sykey, you said it was, though not spelled that way on the slob she stood on, I noticed. But, I take your word for it. Well, if this young lady wasn’t just like Sykey, lamp an’ all! You’d never know the difference, exceptin’ for complexion." "I’m Mrs. Slawson," Martha announced at once. "You told my boy, Sammy, you’d like him run for a doctor." Sykey paused a moment, bewildered. "Oh, yes. This afternoon. I remember, now. I thought he had forgotten." She spoke in the subdued voice one uses when there is sickness in the house. "No, he didn’t forget. My husband is fetchin’ the doctor. But I come on ahead to see if I couldn’t help out some, in between times. My husband an’ me is superintendent for Mr. Frank Ronald, two miles or so down the main road. You know’m prob’ly." The girl nodded. "My grandmother was taken sick at about four, this afternoon. She seems stiff on one side. She can’t move her arm, or her leg, and when she talks it sounds as if her tongue were thick. I got her to bed as well as I could, and I haven’t dared leave her since for more than a minute at a time. We’ve no telephone. This little branch road is out of the line of general travel, and we’ve no one to send on errands. I’ve sat at the window all the afternoon, hoping a team would pass, but nobody went by but your little boy. I thought I saw you come in a while ago, and I hurried down to the door, to let you in. But when you were nowhere to be seen, I gave up in despair. I thought my last chance was gone. I’d have to spend the night alone with grandmother, and——" "The door? Ain’t this the right door to come in by?" queried Martha. There was a moment of hesitation before the answer came. "Oh, yes. It’s the right door for _carriages_. People afoot generally prefer the front way—on account of the veranda-steps, you know." Martha gazed at her companion a moment in silence, then quietly doubled over, in a fit of irrepressible merriment.