She sat up in bed. Listened. If only she might hear some sound to break the stillness--the grinding of a Cottage Grove avenue car--the whistle of an Illinois Central train. Suddenly she swung her legs over the side of the bed, thrust her feet into slippers and stole down the hall to her mother's room. She wanted to talk to her. She'd be awake; awake and sitting up, alone and fearful, just as she herself was. Her mother's door was open. The room was dark, quite. Lottie peered in, sure of a little breathless silence that should precede her mother's whispered, "Is that you, Lottie?" But from within the room came a sleeper's breathing, deep, full, regular. Her mother was asleep. Her mother was asleep! The knowledge hurt her, angered her. She ought to be awake--awake and fearful. Lottie leaned against the doorsill and pitied herself a little. An occasional strangled snore came from the bed. "I should have gone years ago," Lottie told herself. She turned back to her room, not taking the trouble to tiptoe now. Past Aunt Charlotte's room. "Lottie! Is that you?" Lottie groped in the darkness for the bed and that shrill whisper. "Yes. I--I couldn't sleep.----" "I should think not. Come here to Auntie." That was what she had always said in the first years, long ago, when Lottie and Belle were children, afraid or hurt. "Come here to Auntie." Her hand was on Lottie's shoulder, warm and comforting. "Child alive, you haven't got a thing around you! Here, get the silk quilt. It's over the foot of the bed. I didn't put it away." "I've got it." Lottie hunched it gratefully about her chilly shoulders. They were talking in guilty whispers. Lottie huddled at the side of the bed. "I can't go, Aunt Charlotte. I can't go." "Fiddlesticks! That's the middle of the night talking. Wait till you've had a cup of coffee at eight to-morow morning and see how you feel about going." Lottie knew she was right. Yet she must justify her own terror. "It isn't fair to Jeannette. I've been thinking of her." Great-aunt Charlotte snickered a little. "Never you mind about Jeannette." "But I do. I brought her here. I'm responsible----" "Listen to me, Lottie. I went up to Jeannette's room a few nights ago to bring her that little brooch I gave her. The garnet one. She was standing in front of the mirror in her nightgown--don't say a word to your ma--you know how Jeannette always brushes her hair and leaves it loose when she goes to bed? Well, there she was, doing it different ways to see which was most becoming in bed. I saw her. And tying it with a big pink bow." She snickered again, wickedly. "Why Aunt Charlotte Thrift?" "Yes _ma'am_! She'll probably marry that boy before he's off for service. And stay right on here until he comes back. So don't you worry about her being a human sacrifice, Lottie Payson. It's the Jeannettes that make the world go round. They don't stop to think. They just act."