Katherine could not answer. After a moment of silent waiting, the doctor gently released her hand. "I met Mrs. Slawson as I came along," he said in his usual manner. "She’s a trump, that woman. The most normal human creature I’ve ever met." "Her English isn’t normal," Katherine said, trying to control the helpless trembling that was shaking her from head to foot. "She’s an impressionist. That’s what’s the matter with Hannah!—I should say, Martha. She gets and produces her effects in the large. She doesn’t trouble with details. After all, I wonder if we’d like her better, given the possibility of making a grammarian of her." Katharine smiled. "She told me, the other day, that she was being made over. She mentioned the people concerned in it, and the different things they were making her over into. I don’t recollect that grammarian was in the list." "If the rest succeed as well in their efforts as I would in mine, if I attempted to make a Lindley Murray of her, I don’t think we need worry. She’ll progress along her own lines. But she’s not various. You can’t make a complex organism out of an elemental creature like Mrs. Slawson, any more than you could make a contemporaneous ’new woman’ out of Brunnhilde." "Fancy _Martha_ mounted on a celestial steed, bearing the souls of dead heroes to Walhalla!" Dr. Ballard laughed. "Well, I can tell you this, if she saw ’twas for the good of the souls, not the celestial steed, nor the dead heroes, nor Walhalla itself, would faze her. If you ever should need some one to stand by in an emergency, I couldn’t think of a better than Martha Slawson. I hope you’ll remember that, when I’m gone." A moment, and he was gone, had turned abruptly, and left her without even so much as good-by. Katherine bent her head to look down at the hand he had held, on which presently two tears plashed. "She’ll shut me off from that, too," she murmured bitterly. "She’ll shut me off from that too—_if she can_!" *CHAPTER VIII* "Say, mother," Francie called in through the kitchen screen-door, "Miss Claire, she wants you to come on out. She says she wants to show you a very ol’." "A very ol’ _what_?" inquired Martha, turning from her stack of washed breakfast dishes, to wipe her hands on the roller-towel. "I d’know. Only it’s up a tree, an’ she wants to show you it." Martha went out at once. Mrs. Ronald was standing, not far away, gazing intently up into the branches of a splendid spruce. "Sh!" she cautioned, as Mrs. Slawson drew near. "What is it?" asked Martha. "Look!" Martha’s eyes, taking the direction indicated by Miss Claire’s pointing finger, saw nothing. "Do you see?" "No." "Quick! Look! O—oh! There he goes! He’s flown away!" "You mean that—bird?" "Yes—a vireo." Mrs. Slawson’s interest relaxed. "Oh," she said with obvious disappointment. "What did you think I wanted to show you? Didn’t Francie tell you ’twas a vireo?"