Jemima had been dismantling and sending away everything in the house belonging to Mahala that she could spare. Her clothing was packed, and she was counting the days until the removal could be made, when there came to the faithful creature a telegram from her daughter-in-law, and this time the hand of fate had fallen heavily upon Jemima. In the prime of her son’s life, in the full tide of his strength, with his wife and a house full of small children depending upon him, a piston had burst in a piece of machinery upon which he had been working in the factory that employed him, and the remainder of Jemima’s life was taken out of her hands. She was asked to come and help to rear and to support seven children, all of them youngsters needing everything. She was asked to come immediately, so there was nothing to do but to tell Mahala that there was trouble in Jemima’s family; that she had been called, and to leave Mahala to the care of the nurse. So many things had happened to Mahala that one more did not matter. She wept a few weak tears of compassion for Jemima and pity for herself and went soundly to sleep at the hour of Jemima’s departure. The nurse was a kindly woman, a judicious woman, and for the remainder of her stay she found herself adhering very rigidly to the rules that Jemima had explained to her. Backed by Jemima’s reasons, they seemed very good rules. People who had failed Mahala in her hour of tribulation might stay away and attend to their own affairs; they might learn the lesson very thoroughly that the friend in need is the one who is the friend in deed; and that if people were not friends in need, there was every likelihood that they never would be friends again in any conditions that might obtain. On the day that Jason announced that the house was ready, that he was very certain that he and the daughter of one of the neighbouring farmers who had been helping him to arrange the house, would be able to care for Mahala in the future, the nurse helped him to lay springs and a mattress in Peter Potter’s delivery wagon and make up a comfortable bed. With a smile on her pale lips and that brand of hopelessness in her heart which amounts to passivity, Mahala walked between the nurse and Jason and was lifted to the bed. With closed eyes she lay quietly while she was driven through the streets of Ashwater, out country highways, and slowly down the River Road until they reached the house she once had visited.