She left the room with something as like a flounce as her figure would permit. Stealing softly into the half-darkened bedroom at the head of the stairs, she stood looking down at the sleeping woman in the bed. The indignant moisture in her eyes turned to a mist of tenderness that blotted out the sight until a few drops formed and fell. She was too unsuspicious to observe an unsleeplike flickering of the eyelids. She turned to tiptoe out of the room again. There was a quick peep, a look of relief, a husky whisper, "Is that you, Mary Ann?" "Well now, I never did see anything like the regular way you wake up at medicine time," Mary Ann said, opening the shutters and consulting her watch. "Anybody'd think you had an alarm inside of you to go off at the right time." She administered the dose and then went on with a cheerful monologue. She had got into this habit in the sick-room, because her mother hated silence and had to save her own voice. "What kept me so long was that everybody I met wanted to stop me and ask how you were. Everybody seemed pleased to hear you were getting along so nicely. Mrs. Dowling said Dr. Corbett told her you were the most satisfactory patient he had, because you always did everything he told you and always got well." The sick woman smiled up at her. She had a smile that came and went easily, and Mary Ann had become skilful in the art of conducting a conversation in such a way that it served as well as words. "And Caroline Sibbet said to tell you she was counting on going with us to the reception to the minister, and she didn't believe she'd go at all unless you were well by then." It was a wistful smile now. "So I told her she needn't be afraid, you'd be there." A smile of appeal, as if to ask, "Do you really think so?" Mary Ann gave her a puzzled glance. Something was wrong. "Of course you'll be well by then, dearie. You heard what the doctor said to-day--that you might go back to having your cup of tea again to-morrow. That's always the first sign you're getting well, then you get leave to sit up. A week sitting up in your room, a week going downstairs----" Mary Ann began to check off the weeks on her fingers, but her mother interrupted. "Was that Jane the doctor was talking to so long in the hall to-day?" "Let me see. No, that was Selina." "What was he saying to her?"