“Perfect repose, indeed!” scoffed his patient, from behind her curtains, when the visit was over. “Why, the idiot might as well have ordered me a mustard plaster. If he thinks there's any 'repose' in being married to Mr. Lightfoot, I'd be very glad to have him try it for a week.” Betty made no response, for her throat was strained and aching; but in a moment Mrs. Lightfoot called her to her bedside and patted her upon the arm. “We'll go next week, child,” she said gently. “When you have been married as long as I have been, you will know that a week the more or the less of a man's society makes very little difference in the long run.” And the next week they went. On a ripe October day, when the earth was all red and gold, the coach was brought out into the drive, and Mrs. Lightfoot came down, leaning upon Champe and Betty. The Major was reading his Horace in the library, and though he heard the new pair of roans pawing on the gravel, he gave no sign of displeasure. His age had oppressed him in the last few days, and he carried stains, like spilled wine, on his cheeks. He could not ease his swollen heart by outbursts of anger, and the sensitiveness of his temper warned off the sympathy which he was too proud to unbend and seek. So he sat and stared at the unturned Latin page, and the hand he raised to his throat trembled slightly in the air. Outside, Betty, in her most becoming bonnet, with her blue barege shawl over her soft white gown, wrapped Mrs. Lightfoot in woollen robes, and fluttered nervously when the old lady remembered that she had left her spectacles behind. “I brought the empty case; here it is, my dear,” she said, offering it to the girl. “Surely you don't intend to take me off without my glasses?” Mitty was sent upstairs on a search for them, and in her absence her mistress suddenly decided that she needed an extra wrap. “The little white nuby in my top drawer, Betty--I felt a chill striking the back of my neck.” Betty threw her armful of robes into the coach, and ran hurriedly up to the old lady's room, coming down, in a moment, with the spectacles in one hand and the little white shawl in the other. “Now, we must really start, Congo,” she called, as she sat down beside Mrs. Lightfoot, and when the coach rolled along the drive, she leaned out and kissed her hand to Champe upon the steps. “It is a heavenly day,” she said with a sigh of happiness. “Oh, isn't it too good to be real weather?” Mrs. Lightfoot did not answer, for she was busily examining the contents of her black silk bag. “Stop Congo, Betty,” she exclaimed, after a hasty search. “I have forgotten my handkerchief; I sprinkled it with camphor and left it on the bureau. Tell him to go back at once.” “Take mine, take mine!” cried the girl, pressing it upon her; and then turning her back upon the old lady, she leaned from the window and looked over the valley filled with sunshine.