She put the bag on a chair, and began to open it, hurriedly, as if unwilling to wait a minute longer before making sure of remaining. Mrs. Gray, who was standing near her, drew back with a gasp of surprise. The bag was lined with heavy purple silk, and elaborately fitted with toilet articles of shining gold. Mrs. Cary plunged her hands in and tossed out an embroidered white satin negligee, a pair of white satin bed-slippers, and a nightgown that was a mere wisp of sheer silk and lace; then drew forth three trunk-checks, and a bundle an inch thick of crisp, new bank-notes, and pulled one out, blushing and hesitating. "I don't know how to thank you for taking me in to-night," she said; "some day I'll tell you all about myself, and why it means so much to me to have a--a refuge like this; but I'm afraid I can't until--I've got rested a little. Soon we must talk about arrangements and terms and all that--oh, I'm awfully businesslike! But just let me give you this to-night, to show you how grateful I am, and pay for the first two weeks or so." And she folded the bill into a tiny square, and crushed it into Mrs. Gray's reluctant hand. Fifteen minutes later, when Howard Gray and Thomas came into the kitchen for their supper, bringing the last full milk-pails with them, they found the pork and potatoes burnt to a frazzle, the girls all talking at once, and Austin bending over his mother, who sat in the big rocker with the tears rolling down her cheeks, and a hundred-dollar bill spread out on her lap. CHAPTER II For several weeks the Grays did not see much of Mrs. Cary. She appeared at dinner and supper, eating little and saying less. She rose very late, having a cup of coffee in bed about ten; the afternoons she spent rambling through the fields and along the river-bank, but never going near the highroad on her long walks. She generally read until nearly midnight, and the book-hungry Grays pounced like tigers on the newspapers and magazines with which she heaped her scrap-baskets, and longed for the time to come when she would offer to lend them some of the books piled high all around her rooms.