When she had fully forced this realization upon them, Mahala began quietly but persistently to raise her prices. She did nothing but good work. She made her charge commensurate with the time and the labour she had expended. Gradually she began to teach the whole town how to make the most of their looks, of the material that they could afford to use. So it was only a few months until she was making a comfortable living for herself and for her mother, till she was slipping away small sums destined for the restoration of the old house. One morning, one of her customers stopping for a word of gossip, told Mahala that Edith Moreland was a very sick woman. She was having great difficulty in breathing and was being frequently attacked with fainting spells, and the doctors had ordered an immediate change of climate. After the woman had gone, Mahala sat thinking. Some undiscovered malady always had preyed upon Edith. During the past year Mahala had hoped that she was better. This report seemed to indicate that she was not. As she bent above her work, Mahala was wondering what would constitute a change of climate. Where would they take Edith in the hope that she might escape a severe illness? She thought of Junior. She could picture his dismay at being bound to a woman who was ill. He had no stomach for people who were in pain and trouble; that Mahala thoroughly understood. It was while she was pondering on these things that the grinding of wheels before her door caused her to look up, and to her deep surprise, she saw Mrs. Moreland alighting from her carriage and coming in. Mahala always had been sorry for Mrs. Moreland. She had recognized in her a woman who was trying to do what was right, to live an exemplary life before her community. Through her own distaste for the methods of Martin Moreland and Junior, she had arrived at a realizing sense of how frequently this same distaste must be in the mouth of a right-thinking woman who was trying to live with them daily. She opened her door and admitted Mrs. Moreland quietly and with the self-possession which always had characterized her. It was evident that her visitor was very much perturbed. She refused to be seated. Without preliminaries she said: “Mahala, Edith is very sick this morning. She can scarcely breathe. The doctor has said that her only chance depends upon getting her to another climate as promptly as possible. We have planned to start her South and she should go at once, but she positively refuses until she has at least a dress to travel in and a hat of the latest mode. Right away I thought of you. I want you to come and help me get her off as soon as possible.”