"You might not get her positive luxury by that desperate measure, dearie," she said. "But you are far from useless. I can no more imagine the little grey house without you than without its foundations. Don't be anxious nor impatient, Robin; you'll find your place when the time comes, and, in the meantime, you don't realize what a sunny bit of courage you are, nor how these Grey people lean on you. I have a strong foreboding, Roberta, that you are going to have your young hands filled very soon, and your work cut out for you--it may be a work that will demand all your strength." Roberta sat erect, startled. Wythie and she had always felt that Cousin Peace had a gift of foreknowledge almost like second sight; she was so keenly alive to her atmosphere that she felt its changes to a degree that had to blunter folk the effect of prophecy. Something kept Rob now from asking her cousin's meaning. She straightened her young shoulders, and said, instead: "I hope when the time comes I shall not fail them." And Miss Charlotte, understanding that by "them" she meant her family, said, with entire conviction: "I am certain, my dear, that you never will." After dinner "Battalion B" came whistling down the road, and stepped, one after the other, over the gate of the little grey house. They had come to get the girls to go rowing with them, but finding Miss Charlotte there they gave up the plan very willingly, for the tall Rutherford boys had long since succumbed to the charm of the sweet blind woman. "Prue, run up and get the magazine I left in the sitting-room," said Mrs. Grey. "We'll make Basil and Bruce read aloud," cried Rob. "They're too big to be idle, and far too big to be generally useful." Prue, obediently, left the room. As she reached the hall she heard a groan from her father's room, and heard him gasp: "Mary, Rob--oh, come!" She rushed back to the dining-room, where Cousin Peace sat serenely in the breezy window, while Wythie and Rob put away the dinner dishes, and the Rutherfords were tormenting them. How beautiful it looked, how peaceful, to the frightened girl standing speechless in the doorway, with that hoarse moan of pain echoing in her ears, unheard by the others! Wythie looked up and saw Prue's face. The saucer she held fell to the floor in fragments. "Prue--what?" she gasped. Everyone sprang up, and Mrs. Grey seized Prue's arm, in mute appeal. "Papa's sick or hurt; he's groaning and trying to call," Prue managed to say. Miss Charlotte, Wythie, Rob, and the boys pushed Prue aside, starting for the room across the hall, but Mrs. Grey's love outstripped them. She it was who first reached her husband's side, and knelt in terror beside his arm-chair, where he half sat, half lay, his face ashen, his breath short. His right hand pressed his chest, the left arm hung at his side, the pulse in the wrist hardly perceptible to his wife's fingers.