"That was the reason she called to see me to-night, and, finding I had just left the house, followed me. Tom is ill,--his name is Tom Bosworth. It is nearly two months since he lost his place, and he has walked himself to a shadow in making efforts to gain another. He has written letters and presented letters; he has stood outside doors until he was faint with hunger; he has interviewed members of Congress, senators, heads of departments, officials great and small. He has hoped and longed and waited, and taken buffetings meekly. He is not a strong fellow, and it has broken him up. He has had several chills, and is thin and nervous and excitable. Kitty--his wife's name is Kitty--is pale and thin too. She has lost her dimples, and her eyes look like a sad little owl's, and always have tears in them, which she manages to keep from falling so long as Tom is within sight. To-night she wanted to ask me if I knew any ladies who would give her sewing. She thinks she might sew until Tom gets a place again." "I will give her sewing," exclaimed Agnes. "I can do something for them if they will let me. Oh, I am very glad that I can!" "I felt sure you would be," said Arbuthnot. "I thought of you at once, and wished you could see her as I saw her." She answered him a little hurriedly, and he wondered why her voice faltered. "I will see her to-morrow," she said, "if you will give me the address." "I have naturally wondered if it was possible that anything could be done for the husband," he said. "If you could use your influence in any way,--you see how inevitably we come to that; it always becomes a question of influence; our very charities are of the nature of schemes; it is in the air we breathe." "I will do what I can," she replied. "I will do anything--anything you think would be best." Mrs. Merriam checked herself on the very verge of looking up, but though by an effort she confined herself to apparently giving all her attention to her knitting-needles for a few moments, she lost the effect of neither words nor voice. "No," she made mental comment, "it was _not_ malaria."