She was surrounded with every comfort and a good deal of luxury. Her room, twenty feet square, had four large windows facing the south and west; the plastered walls were painted a pale yellow with curtains of a deeper shade. Upholstered in yellow silk with half a dozen yellow and brown silk curtains, was the couch Miss Patricia had ordered from New York to be in keeping with the room. Supplies of magazines and books were sent weekly from town, letters arrived in generous number, occasionally a visitor appeared from one of the hotels or cottages a few miles off, but oftentimes was sent away unseen by Mrs. Burton, Aunt Patricia concluding that she were better left alone if the visitor happened to be not a friend but an acquaintance merely desiring to do homage to a famous woman. Fortunately Miss Patricia looked with favor upon the physician who made weekly calls upon his patient. Miss Lord had secured a cabin in this particular neighborhood in order that the younger woman might be under his care. One afternoon during the first week in September, Miss Patricia and Mrs. Burton were sitting in her bed-room between five and six o’clock. The twilight was beginning to close gently in so that a single lamp was lighted on a table which stood near Mrs. Burton’s couch. Lying upon the couch, she was holding a newspaper open in her hand, but at the moment was not reading. A few feet away Miss Patricia sat grimly hemming dish towels. Neither had spoken in the last ten minutes, not since Dr. Larimer, after an hour’s visit, had driven away. “You are an extremely entertaining companion, Polly. Do you realize you scarcely have spoken to me all day, and yet you seemed to find a great deal to discuss with Dr. Larimer; perhaps because he is a man and I am only a woman.” Swiftly Mrs. Burton dropped the paper which had been hiding her face. “I am so sorry, dear, to have been so stupid; I have been reading since Dr. Larimer’s visit. But it is unkind of you to say I preferred talking to Dr. Larimer for such a reason, when you know what I wanted to discuss with him.” “Yes, and his answer was exactly what I anticipated,” Miss Patricia answered severely, although her eyes were now searching the younger woman’s face. “Polly, I desire you to be truthful, even when the truth appears less complimentary to me. In the last few minutes you have not read a single line. I have been watching you and——” The paper slid to the floor as Mrs. Burton sat up clasping her arms about her knees. Her corded yellow silk gown with a soft fall of lace about her throat had been put on in honor of the doctor’s call; her black hair was loosely coiled on top of her head, her cheeks too brightly flushed, her blue eyes less clear than usual.