“Reginald has the measles.”

Lois made the announcement breathlessly, as she stood outside of the drawing-room, addressing the visitors who sat on the sofa, talking to Dosia.

“The doctor has just gone, and he says it is the measles. I don’t suppose I had better come in the room.” There was a tone of resentment in her voice which seemed to originate in the idea of being excluded; in reality, it was caused by the bitter thought that she had known for a couple of days that Redge was not well, and that his father had been exacting with him. “I really suppose I had better not come in.”

“Oh, don’t mind me!” Mrs. Leverich, gorgeous in velvet and furs, spoke reassuringly. “There are no children at our house, and I’ve had the measles.”

“Of course, it’s not scarlet fever,” continued Lois, dropping into a chair, “or diphtheria. I suppose Zaidee will get it, and we have to be quarantined. I don’t know what to do about you, Dosia.” She was feeling the fell blow of a contagious disease, which upsets every previously stable condition.

“I’ve had the measles,” said the girl, but she added with quick anxiety: “There are my lessons; do you suppose it will make any difference about them? I don’t see how I can lose them now, and there’s that concert Saturday.”

“If we’re quarantined, you’re quarantined,” said Lois tersely. “If there was any place where you could go and stay——”

“Mrs. Alexander, let her come to me,” said Mrs. Leverich warmly. “I’d love to have her; I really would. She can keep up with her lessons and engagements just the same then. You know, I’m always so happy when I can have a young girl in the house; and as for Mr. Leverich, nothing pleases him better. Go and pack your trunk at once, my dear, and we’ll take it on the carriage as we go back.”

Dosia looked hesitatingly at Lois.

“Why—I do not know,” said Lois, surprised, yet considering.

“But I do.” Mrs. Leverich spoke with a cordial authority that, after a little more conversation, settled the matter.

Dosia packed up her belongings, with the sweet, wise little help of Zaidee, who brought shoes and slippers from the closet and toilet articles from the dressing-table, and in her efforts dropped the red ribbon from her hair into the trunk, to her own great glee, amid fond, swift huggings from Dosia. The latter arranged herself for this transmigration with quick, excited fingers, yet there was something on her mind. As she heard Lois on the floor below, she ran down to speak to her, half dressed: “Lois, I hate to leave you here alone; I don’t mind being kept from things, really and truly. Let me stay and help you with dear little Redge.” For once her sympathy made her natural.

“No, you had better go,” said Lois. She had but one desire—to be left at liberty at last with her own. She added, to avoid further pleading:

“I would rather be alone.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Dosia, shrinking. But conscience had unexpectedly claimed her, and she went on, hesitantly, with a painful timidity, her color coming and going:

“I wanted to ask—do you think I ought to go to Mrs. Leverich’s, after what you said? Won’t Mr. Barr be there?”

In the whole realm of the mother’s mind there was no room for anything at present but her measles-smitten household. She looked at Dosia as if making an effort to understand. “Why, yes, I suppose he will be there. Just don’t have anything to do with him if you don’t want to. You will not need to; he is out of the house most of the time, anyway.”

“Oh, very well,” assented Dosia, chilled and yet relieved. The blood of youth was already running riot at the delightful prospect of another change. But she slipped into the nursery to kiss poor little feverish Redge good-by, and leaned out of the carriage that was driving her away to wave her hand again and again to Zaidee, whose red cheeks and little snub-nose were pressed close to the window-pane.

Mrs. Leverich was a woman who was somewhat below par in birth and education, devoid of certain finer instincts, and used to an overflow of luxury in her daily living that amounted sometimes to vulgar display. To balance this, she was still handsome, if somewhat too stout, and hospitable to a superlative degree. “Staying company” was a necessity to her happiness. She had an absolute passion for making other people comfortable, and surrounded her guests with a kindness and forethought so enveloping that it almost spoiled them for contact afterwards with a rude world. She really possessed in this regard an unselfish good-heartedness, mingled with a sort of vanity that was pleased with applause at its manipulations; her own comfort was indifferent to her beside the subtler and warmer pleasure of being the source of good to others. It is no figure of speech to say that she was willing to do anything to promote the welfare of her guests; it was no hardship to give up her own way in their interests, or to do any act, however tiring and distasteful, that gave pleasure to anyone. She hated cards, yet she would play long, tedious games with beaming incompetence, to make up a hand; she disliked the smell of tobacco, but was never satisfied until every man around her was happily supplied with cigars or pipes. Music was a jangle to her, and any book above the caliber of the fiction which displays a low-necked authoress upon the cover a weariness indeed; but she would labor unceasingly to place both music and literature within the reach of her guests. She had windows opened when she herself was chilly, and fires lighted when she was suffering with the heat; she took long drives in the hot sun when she would have much preferred a nap; she chaperoned girls uncomplainingly until five o’clock in the morning. The least wish of a guest, spoken or divined, was gratified if within her power. It is true that she had a retinue of servants at her command, but, if necessary, she would have served her guests with her own hands, and had been known to do so. There was only one drawback to her hospitality—she welcomed, but did not speed the parting guest. It was difficult indeed to leave without a pitched battle, and the effort of temporary disunion was so great as sometimes to result in a permanent rupture of friendship. Her “I see—you don’t want to stay with us any longer” voiced that injured feeling which blasts whatever it comes in contact with, and which disclaimers serve only to heighten. Once away from her, her interest in the former guest ceased almost entirely, no matter how close the association had been under her roof; outside of it everyone was lost in a haze which called for a distinct and wearying effort, seldom undertaken, to penetrate.

In appearance she was on the Oriental type of her half-brother, Lawson Barr, but with a softness, both of expression and contour, which he did not possess. She was ten years older than he. Her motions and the tone of her voice were languid. Her husband—who enjoyed the benefits of being the chief and permanent guest in this household—was extremely fond of her, and proud of her beauty and popularity. Leverich was one of those coarse-seeming and coarse-acting men who, nevertheless, come of a race of gentlefolk, and who have innately, and no matter how much they may choose to overlay the fact, certain traditions. He had been known to say, in rebuttal of some criticism on his wife’s breeding, what was quite true—that she was good enough for him; but he had, underneath, a little contempt for her because she was. It was one of the traditions that a man should find a quality in his wife to revere.

Leverich liked to surround his wife with luxuries, to give her everything that money could buy and that her gently sensuous temperament craved. Her attachment was riveted to him by gifts of clothing and jewelry and bric-À-brac as well as money—such things being to her the only tangible evidences of affection. Dosia had hitherto seen the house only as a caller. She was impressed now by the richness of the furnishings above, as she was led up to her room, a large, many-windowed apartment on the second floor. It was all a gleam of polished mahogany, and brass and mirrors and silver toilet articles, blended with rose-silk draperies; the alcoved bed was spread with a flowered silk counterpane, the floors covered with rich Eastern rugs; easy-chairs and low tables spread with books dotted the room; a couch piled high with down cushions stood at a seductive angle. A maid glided forward to take Dosia’s hat and cloak, while another knelt at the hearth to light the logs upon the brass andirons, and Mrs. Leverich came in and out in an overflow of solicitude.

“I really think you had better rest. You must be tired. No, of course”—at Dosia’s laughing remonstrance—“the drive was nothing, but the shock—a shock like that tells on you before you know it. Here comes your trunk; have you the key? Elizabeth, unpack Miss Dosia’s trunk, and get out a dressing-gown for her. I’m going to insist on your lying down on the lounge for a while. Now, don’t do that, Elizabeth will take off your shoes for you. And, Amelia,”—this to the maid at the hearth,—“bring up some tea and biscuits. No, you don’t care for tea? Well, a glass of sherry, then, and some hothouse grapes. My dear Dosia,—you’ll let me call you Dosia, won’t you?—you may not feel the need of it now, but it will do you good. I’m not going to stay with you, I’ll just move this little table with the magazines on it near you, and leave you to rest; but first I want to show you this.” She opened the door of a smaller, hexagonal apartment adjoining. “I’m going to turn it into a music-room for you.”

“Oh, Mrs. Leverich!” protested Dosia, in amazement.

“I’ve been thinking of it all the way home in the carriage. Of course, you won’t want to practice down-stairs, where people are coming in and out all the time; it would be very annoying to you. This has been used as an extra dressing-room. I shall have those thick hangings taken down and the furniture moved out, and put in light chairs and a cottage piano, and a few palms over by the window. You’ll see!”

“But, Mrs. Leverich——”

“Now, don’t say a word; it’s all settled. Elizabeth will come to you when it’s time to dress, so you need give yourself no anxiety about that. Just let me draw this coverlet over you and tuck your feet in. Now, how sweet you do look, to be sure!”

Dosia did “look sweet,” and as comfortable and soft as a kitten. The light-blue kimono of outing flannel,—of which she had been half ashamed when the maid unpacked it,—though cheap, was becoming; her loosened hair fell over the blended pillows and the rosy coverlet. The wood fire at which she gazed crackled and sent out the pungent, aromatic smell of Southern pine, which mingled with the perfume of a bunch of violets on the table near the golden sherry in its crystal glass, and the plate of white and reddish grapes. There was the unaccustomed stillness of a large, well-appointed house, where the walls were deadened to sound, and the floors had thick-piled rugs upon them, and the servants walked with soft-shod feet. Such luxurious well-being had never been Dosia’s before. This was like being in a fairy palace, where you had only to clap your hands to get anything you wished for. And the most charming thing about the fairy palace was that there you always met the prince.

This girl was so constituted that, except in the first flush of excitement incident to her entrance into this new sphere, she must have always some heart-warm thought, some little inner pleasure of her own, to make the larger one serve. Dosia knew now that she was to meet the true prince. This was the house he visited; all this outer circle of comfort was but the prelude to love—that mysterious and intangible love that made you happy ever after. She was glad that she had kept hold of that hand, and had not let herself be drawn away by lesser ties. Her day-dream was to bewitch and dazzle him, to compel him to her attraction; a dozen situations, based on that first idea of his recognition of her in some noble deed, occupied her happy mind; in all moments of extra exaltation she brought out the thought and played with it and hugged it to her. She had yet to learn how few things happen as we imagine them.

In the midst of her half-drowsy musings, the door behind her burst open; suddenly a big collie-dog bounded in. He was licking her cheeks, when a sharp whistle called him back, and the door was instantly closed again. Dosia knew that the dog was Lawson’s. She sprang up and locked the door, but her dream had vanished. She had a tingling consciousness that she was to meet Lawson at dinner. She made up her mind to be very dignified and cool toward him; she rehearsed the manner in which her eyelashes would fall, the politely bored expression of her forced attention, the casual tips of her fingers as they touched his in the conventional handshake of greeting—all of which would emphasize the fact that he had now no particular interest for her, if, indeed, he had ever had any.

But, after all, he was not at dinner, which was a relief, and yet a disappointment: when you have sharpened your weapons, it is only natural to want to use them. Lawson did not appear the next day, nor the next. Once she heard him coming in very late at night, and in the morning he had gone before she breakfasted. A couple of times in the late afternoon, when the dog came trotting ahead through the hall, she had slipped aside, breathless, as from some peril escaped. It was the third day after her arrival that he suddenly made his appearance in the drawing-room, where she was seated by the piano, looking over a pile of music. Mrs. Leverich was out driving, but had thought the air too damp for Dosia.

She tried to accomplish the indifferent handshake she had prefigured, and could have flagellated herself for the color that she felt enveloping her from brow to throat under his cool, appraising eyes, as he bent over the piano as if to help her with her search.

“What do you wish to find?” he asked in a businesslike way. “Perhaps I can assist you.”

“Thank you, it isn’t necessary.”

She held her head at an unresponsive angle involuntarily, so that she might not see his face, which had struck her as unexpectedly younger and better-looking than hitherto.

“I see that my sister has fitted up a little music-room for you. Have you done much practicing there yet?”

“Some.”

“You are not homesick in your new quarters?”

“No.”

“Let me hold that portfolio for you.” He interposed a dexterous hand. “Oh, don’t thank me—you see, if you drop it, courtesy will oblige me to pick up all the music. This is the first time we’ve met since you have been in the house; I’ve been so patient that I deserve more than to have little cold, hard monosyllables thrown at me.”

“Patient!”

“Haven’t I seen you slip out of the way when you thought I was coming? I’m accustomed to the phenomenon.” The lightness of his tone did not hide the bitter strain under it. “Really, I’m not lacking in perception. I wished to give you time to get inured to the sad fact that I live here; and you need not have changed the time for your lessons last week, for I have no regular time for my daily exodus at present. If you will keep your head so persistently turned away, you might as well utilize the position. Play me something.”

“No, you play for me,” returned Dosia, glad of the chance to divert his attention from her.

“I might play ‘Greeting,’ since I’m not going to get any.”

He seated himself on the piano-bench she vacated, and played a few strains absently; there was that in the low, sweet chords among which his fingers strayed that could not but enchain. She forgot her aloofness to listen. Presently he said:

“Who is my rival?”

“What do you mean?” She started up, and stood with both arms resting on the lower end of the grand piano, staring at him.

“I could not think that blush was for me—that beautiful color that stole over you when I came in. It couldn’t be for me, when you have avoided me so pointedly. So I concluded, of course, that it was either the reflection from that brick wall out there, or was called forth by the thought of my rival.”

“I will not say that it was the brick wall,” said Dosia, yielding to the light, heady spirit he always roused in her, with, also, the little under-knowledge of her secret dream.

“Then I will not say it was the rival,” said Lawson. He added in a lower tone: “And I wouldn’t give it up to any rival; I saw it—it was mine.”

“You claim a great deal,” returned Dosia, wishing that she had the strength of mind to go and leave him, yet loath to lose a moment of this converse.

He shook his head as he answered gently: “No, you are mistaken there; I claim nothing. I have no rights—only privileges. I hope it’s going to be my privilege to have a little of your charming society in the next few days. I shall be at home, perforce; I’ve lost my position.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” said Dosia, with her quick sympathy. He raised one hand deprecatingly, while the other still weaved in and out in a pianissimo accompaniment.

“Sorry? For me? Oh, that’s not the thing to say, at all. You should condemn my inability to keep the place.”

“Why do you talk like this?” asked Dosia, with a pained feeling.

“Why do you run when you see me coming?” He flashed a quizzical glance at her.

“I don’t,” she began to say, but her words trailed off into an inarticulate murmur.

He had played a chord or two more to her silence before he stopped to lean forward and say:

“Why did you avoid me on the train? You need not trouble yourself to answer. Some kind person had warned you against being too polite to me—and you took the warning like a good little girl. It has been borne in upon me quite a number of times that I do not exactly command respect in this community. I assure you that I know my place.”

“But, oh, why don’t you make people respect you?” cried Dosia. “Why don’t you make them? If you really try—oh, if I were a man, I wouldn’t sit quietly and say such things. You can do anything if you really try.”

“Can you?” He smiled with indulgence at her copy-book wisdom. “Well, perhaps you can, if there’s sufficient impetus to the effort. There really isn’t with me. When I was a boy—you’ll tire yourself if you stand up any longer. Come and sit over here by the fire.”

She followed half mechanically to the sofa on which he arranged the cushions for her, seating himself in the other corner, where he leaned forward, looking, not at her, but at the fire. His personality was so strong that each inch that lessened the distance between her and that lithe, sinewy figure and the dark Oriental face brought a corresponding thrill of magnetism to Dosia—a subtle excitement which drew her into its spell. The confusion which had clouded her at first was gone; she felt luminously clear, in preparation for some great moment of confidence, in which her mission would be to help and sustain. She broke the silence presently to say, with a sweet and halting diffidence, through which her earnestness showed:

“I want you to tell me. You began to say—I want to know about when you were a boy.”

“When I was a boy I made a wrong start. Heaven knows, it wasn’t my fault! I was good enough before that—religiously inclined!” He leaned forward and struck a log with one of the fire-irons, sending a shower of sparks flying upward. “Where do you think I learned half the bad I know? At a camp-meeting! But I won’t go back to the past—it’s a mistake. Only, I came here literally ‘on suspicion.’”

“Yes,” said Dosia, with her clear spirit-voice; “and you tried to work up from under it.”

Lawson dropped his chin into his hands, looking moodily ahead. “I’m afraid not always. Sometimes the contrary.”

“Oh, oh,” breathed Dosia, in a whisper.

“If you want me to tell you the truth—! Your relatives are quite right in ordering you to avoid me. There has never been anybody, you see, to really care whether I kept straight or not.”

“Your sister?”

Lawson shrugged his shoulders. “It would, of course, be pleasanter for Myra if she hadn’t me on her mind, and Leverich has done his best, I suppose. I’m not groaning—just telling you the bare facts. Living ‘on suspicion’ is demoralizing in the long run, that’s all; one lives down to an opinion as well as up to it, you know. There’s never been anyone, since I was a child, to really believe in me, so there’s nobody to be disappointed.”

“I will believe in you,” said Dosia, with the vibrating tone of her emotion. Her clear eyes looked at his as if to convey strength and warmth and all that was uplifting straight to his heart.

“You had better not.”

“I will believe in you!” Her tone had even greater insistence. “I know what it is—myself—to be with those who do not care. You are not as other people think you! You can be good and noble. You can”—her voice sank to a whisper—“resist temptation. If one prays—it helps; I know that.” Her voice rose steadily again, after a tremulous silence: “You can never say again that no one believes in you, for I believe in you.”

“And care?” asked Lawson.

His eyes glittered and his face worked with some unusual emotion.

“And care,” assented Dosia, with the same unwavering eyes and serious, childlike candor of tone.

He stooped and gently pressed his lips to her hand as it lay upon her gown. “You are the very sweetest child! I—” He stopped abruptly, and walked away to the window. The next moment Mrs. Leverich was rustling into the room.

If she suspected an interview too confidential, she showed nothing of it in her manner. She had come back to take her guest out driving, after all—the sun was shining. Dosia ran to get ready, tingling—was it from the exaltation or the excitement of this interview, with its unexpected compact? She trembled with the pathos of it all. She passed each phase of it rapidly before her mind, to convince herself that there was nothing in words or feeling, no, nor in that reverential homage of Lawson’s, that could be interpreted as disloyalty to the unknown to whom her future belonged.

Mrs. Leverich was waiting with a magnificent wrap of velvet and fur for Dosia to put on in the carriage over her street costume.

“I was sure you were not warm enough yesterday,” she explained. She leaned forward to call to the coachman: “James, you may drive first to Benning’s. We are going to get some chocolates to take with us, dear; I know girls always enjoy themselves more if there is a box of chocolates handy.”

“Oh, Mrs. Leverich!” said Dosia gratefully.

“And we will stop at the greenhouse and get some flowers for you to wear to-night at dinner; you know, George Sutton is coming. I want you to look particularly well.”

“I don’t care to look particularly well for him,” objected Dosia, stiffening.

“No, of course, you don’t need to; but, still, a girl should always look as pretty as she can; she can never tell who is going to see her. James, ask at the express-office if there are any packages. I sent for some of the new books. Yes, that is for me. Now, my dear, you’ll have something nice to read.”

“You are too good, Mrs. Leverich; you are just spoiling me,” said Dosia.

In these three days she had been the recipient of so many gifts and favors that it was difficult to know how to vary her expression of gratitude. She had already been presented with a white China silk tea-gown, the scores of two of the latest light operas, and an amethyst belt-pin. The little music-room had been fitted out appropriately from floor to ceiling, and framed with palms; Mrs. Leverich had spent the whole of one morning with a corps of servants, planning, directing, and approving. Dosia had hardly time to frame a wish before it was forestalled.

“It is such a comfort to me to have you here,” continued Mrs. Leverich, sinking back among her cushions. “You may take the Five-mile Drive, James. If I had only had a daughter! I said this morning to Mr. Leverich, ‘I am going to pretend she’s my daughter while she’s here.’ You don’t mind, dear? You will let me have you for my very own?”

“Yes, indeed,” answered Dosia, with the warmth of youth.

“I have never wished for a son. Boys are a terrible responsibility. There is Lawson.”

“Yes,” said Dosia, as she paused.

“He has always been such a trial. We have given him every advantage—and he has every advantage naturally; but it’s no use. Mr. Leverich says he will make one more effort for him, and if that is no use he must go. We have simply done all we can. I would not speak so openly to you if you had not been staying in the house, but you could not help hearing.”

“Hearing——?”

“Yes, these nights when he has come home so late. George Sutton brought him home Tuesday night from the train—he couldn’t walk alone. I was so ashamed at the noise!”

“Oh!” breathed Dosia in a horrified undertone. She added, “Has he always been like this?”

“More or less. At first it was only when he went away; but he couldn’t keep any position long, because he would go away for days and days at a stretch. And now it is getting to be—any time. I’m sure we have done everything in this world to keep it quiet. And Lawson has every advantage naturally; it is only this—drinking. Of course, no one can have any confidence in him; I always felt that it was hopeless, from the first.”

No one had believed in him! Dosia caught at the confirmation as a ray of light gilding this dark and slimy morass, the sight of which had unexpectedly revolted her. In Balderville only the lower class of inhabitants drank; no young man of respectability or position was to be seen among them. But was not this the very kind of trial of her through which she had promised to have faith? He had not posed as devoid of offense; on the contrary, he had confessed to guilt, only she had not quite understood. Sin as plain sin shows a glazed surface, quite decently presentable; it is only when it is particularized that the monstrosities below are hideously revealed.

“It must be a great grief to you,” she said now, with earnestness.

“Yes, it is. Mr. Leverich says I shall not have so much on my mind after this winter; he has put his foot down. The nights I have passed! I’m always fancying that he is run over, or has fallen from the ferry-boat; it’s the most dreadful strain. James, we are to stop for the ice-cream on the way back—don’t forget; and those cakes at Mrs. Springer’s—they were ordered yesterday. Where was I? I forget. Oh, yes—the most dreadful strain! and I felt that I ought to speak about him to you, as you are staying under my care, and yet I hated to. But, of course, after the disturbance, I knew that it was nonsense to try and keep up a pretense any longer. You can see just what he is yourself.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Dosia, grown big-eyed and silent.

Her hostess insisted on her drinking a large cup of hot bouillon on her return, she looked so pale and chilly, relighted the logs in Dosia’s room with her own fat, white, beringed hands, and enveloped the girl enthusiastically several times in a large and perfumed embrace, in confirmation of her new position as a daughter. Dosia was dainty about the manifestations of affection; though she was intensely responsive in spirit to the least show of it, material demonstrations were unnatural to her; she was shy of being touched even by her own sex. It was only with little children that the exuberance of her feeling poured forth in caresses. That the hand-clasp the night of the disaster had appealed so strongly to her imagination was partly because of the fact that the comfort it conveyed transcended the strangeness of contact. To be pressed now to a warm, semimaternal bosom covered with voluminous folds of mauve velvet and lace gave her only an embarrassed gratitude, which she felt, guiltily, as being far from adequate to the occasion. And she was weary of trying to elude the vacillations of her mind. She would keep her promise to Lawson,—yes, yes, indeed! a hundred times more, the more he needed it,—but she would be very careful, too; she would be very careful. A hundred tiny defenses seemed to spring into being.

He was at the dinner as well as Mr. Sutton. The sixth person was Ada Snow, with the well-bred composure which concealed her innate shyness, and in the white dotted swiss she had worn for ten years past, ever since she had graduated, in fact, and which still looked decently presentable. Dosia was gay and conversational, as she was expected to be, the party being hers; she had began to feel the daughter of luxury, if not of Mrs. Leverich, and accepted the honors with the easily accustomed grace that is born of admiration and security, conscious every moment through it all of that bond between herself and Lawson. He looked boyish and happy. Later, in a talk about skating, he offered to teach her to skate the next day if the ice held, and Mrs. Leverich, to whom Dosia looked, expecting her to invent some excuse, approved at once, and planned to send for skates the first thing in the morning. His quizzical eye seized unerringly on the signs of withdrawal in her, and brought the blush of compunction to her cheek, while Mr. Leverich jocosely deplored that he could not take the office of trainer instead. Mr. Sutton, who had sat by her at dinner, and hovered amorously over her in the way a girl detests in a man she does not care for, might have been mysteriously rebuffed by the suggestion of Lawson’s intimacy, for he devoted himself for the rest of the short evening to Ada Snow, who dropped into one of her statuesque angles on an ottoman, and talked to him in her low, trained voice with modestly confidential deference, until he left, quite early. His attention to Miss Snow had not kept him, however, from picking up Dosia’s handkerchief twice when she happened to drop it.

Billy Snow created a diversion by coming in at half-past ten for his sister, and stating casually that he had seen the doctor’s carriage stopping at the Alexander house as he passed.

“As you passed now?” cried Dosia, startled. “Are the children worse?” An unacknowledged compunction, which she had felt through all her pleasures, at leaving the sick household, sprang swiftly to the front. “Oh, I’m so afraid Redge and Zaidee are worse! I wish I could go there at once and see!”

“If they only had a telephone,” began Mrs. Leverich, for the twentieth time. “I can send——”

“Oh, if I could only go myself!” interrupted Dosia, looking utterly miserable in her sudden wild anxiety.

“You could have the carriage—but James is asleep.” Mrs. Leverich looked almost as miserable as Dosia in her baffled hospitality. “But if you don’t mind walking——”

“No—oh, no!”

“Then Lawson can take you, of course. There are some wraps in the hall; I’ll pin your dress up, so that you won’t need to take the time to change it. Must you go, Ada? Then you can all walk down together. Mr. Leverich would have offered to go with you himself, I know, Dosia,—wouldn’t you, Joseph?—if it were not for his cold. But Lawson can take you, of course!”