Annie's manner changed instantly, and she smilingly answered, "You will find an arm-chair before a blazing fire in your room upstairs, and an arm-chair before a blazing fire in the parlor, and you can vacillate between them at your pleasure." "As a vacillating man should, perhaps you might add." "I add nothing of the kind." "Will you never let me go to church with you again?" "Certainly, after what you said, any pleasant day." "Why can't I have the privilege of being a martyr as well as yourself?" "I am not a martyr. I would far rather go out to-day than stay at home." "It will be very lonely without you." "Oh, you are the martyr then, after all. I hope you will have sufficient fortitude to endure, and doze comfortably during the two hours of my absence." "Now you are satirical on Sunday, Miss Walton. Let that burden your conscience. I'm going to ask your father if I may go." "Of course you will act at your pleasure," said Mr. Walton, "but I think, in your present state of health, Annie has suggested the wiser and safer thing to do." "I should probably be ill on your hands if I went, so I submit; but I wish you to take note, Miss Walton, that I have the 'sperit to go.'" The arm-chairs were cosey and comfortable, and the hickory wood turned, as is its wont, into glowing and fragrant coals, but the house grew chill and empty the moment that Annie left. Though Mr. Walton and Miss Eulie accompanied her, their absence was rather welcome, but he felt sure that Annie could have beguiled the heavy-footed hours. "She has some unexplained power of making me forget my miserable self," he muttered. And yet, left to himself, he had now nothing to do but think, and a fearful time he had of it, lowering at the fire, in the arm-chair, from which he scarcely stirred.