"She's just went. You can ketch her yet. I told her to wait till it let up a little. She was wetter'n a drowned rat. But not her! You know your ma! Wait nothin'." Lottie headed toward Indiana Avenue and the car line. Her eyes searched the passers-by beneath their dripping umbrellas. Then she spied her, a draggled black-garbed figure, bundle laden, waiting on the corner for her car. Her left arm--the bad one--was held stiffly folded in front of her, close to her body. That meant pain. Her shoulders were hunched a little. Her black hat was slightly askew. Lottie noted, with the queer faculty one has for detail at such times, that her colour was slightly yellow. But as she peered up the street in vain hope of an approaching street car, her glance was as alert as ever. She walked forward toward the curb to scan the empty car tracks. Lottie noticed her feet. In the way she set them down; in their appearance of ankle-weakness and a certain indescribable stiffness that carried with it a pathetic effort at spryness there was, somehow, a startling effect of age, of feebleness. She toed in a little with weariness. A hot blur sprang to Lottie's eyes. She drew up sharply at the curb, flung open the door, was out, had seized the bundles and was propelling her mother toward the electric almost before Mrs. Payson had realised her presence. "Mother dear, why didn't you wait!" For a moment it looked as if Mrs. Payson meant to resist stubbornly. She even jerked her arm away, childishly. But strong as her will was, her aching body protested still more strongly. Lottie hoisted her almost bodily into the electric. She looked shrunken and ocherous as she huddled in a corner. But her face was set, implacable. The car sped down the rain-swept street. Lottie glanced sideways at her mother. Her eyes were closed. They seemed strangely deep-set in their sockets. "Oh, mama----" Lottie's voice broke; the tears, hot, hurt, repentant, coursed down her cheeks--"why did you do it! You knew--you knew----" Mrs. Carrie Payson opened her eyes. "You said Belle's hired girl's sister was more important than I, didn't you? Well!" "But you knew I didn't----" she stopped short. She couldn't say she hadn't meant it. She had. She couldn't explain to her mother that she had meant that her effort to help Jeannette was her protest against stifled expression. Her mother would not have understood. It sounded silly and pretentious even in her unspoken thought. But deeper than this deprecatory self-consciousness was a new and growing consciousness of Self. She remembered Jeannette; Jeannette installed in the third floor room, a member of the household. At the thought of breaking the news of her presence to her mother Lottie felt a wild desire to giggle. It was a task too colossal, too hopeless for seriousness. You had to tackle it smilingly or go down to defeat at once. Lottie braced herself for the effort. She told herself, dramatically, that if Jeannette went she, too, would go.