"And she's miserable, miserable," Helen's heart cried out, and she laughed unhappily herself. "And Miriam's afraid of her! There's nothing to be afraid of. She knows that, and she's afraid we'll find it out all the time. And it might all have been so simple and so--so smooth." Helen was considered by the other Canipers and herself as the dullest of the family, and this morning she swept, dusted and polished in the old ignorance of her acuteness, nor would the knowledge of it have consoled her. She was puzzling over the cause which kept the man in Italy apart from the woman here, and when she gave that up in weariness, she tried to picture him in a white house beside an eternally blue sea. The windows of the house had jalousies of a purplish red, there were palm-trees in the sloping garden and, at the foot of it, waves rocked a shallow, tethered boat. And her father was in bed, no doubt; the flush redder on his thin cheeks, his pointed black beard jerked over the sheet. She had seen him lying so on his last visit to the moor, and she had an important little feeling of triumph in the memory of that familiarity. She was not sentimental about this distant parent, for he was less real than old Halkett, far less real than Mr. Pinderwell; yet it seemed cruel that he should lie in that warm southern country without a wife or daughter to care for him. "Helen," Miriam said from Phoebe's door, "do you think he is going to die?" "How can I tell?" "And you don't care?" "Not much, of course, but I'm sorry for him." "Sweet thing! And if he dies, shall we wear black?" Helen's pale lips condescended to a rather mocking smile. "I see you mean to." "Well, if you can do the proper thing and look nice at the same time--" She broke off and fidgeted. "I don't mind his dying if he does it far away, but, oh, wouldn't it be horrible if he did it here? Ill people make me sick." "Why don't you go and do something yourself? Go and amuse Uncle Alfred." "No, he's not nice in the mornings. He said so, and I've peeped at him. Liverish." "Order the chickens, then, but ask Notya first." "Where is she?" Together they peeped over the banisters and listened. "You'd better ask," Miriam said. "I wonder where she is. Call her," she added, daring Helen to break one of the rules of that quiet house; and Helen, who had discovered the truth that day, lifted her voice clearly. "If she's not cross," Miriam whispered, "we'll know she's worried." "Oh," Helen said soberly, "how horrid of us! I wish I hadn't." Miriam's elbow was in her side. "Here she comes, look!" They could see the crown of Mildred Caniper's fair head, the white blot of her clasped hands. "What is it?" she asked quietly, turning up her face. "Shall Miriam order the chickens?" Helen called down. "Oh, yes--yes," she answered, and went away. "Ha, ha! Quite successful! Any special kind of chicken? Black legs? Yellow legs?" "She'll give you the best she has," Helen said.