Fetzer, though small of stature and retiring of mien, had no misgivings about her ability to manage the Lanfair house. Her instructions to Ellen were given with as much positiveness and intimacy of detail as though human destinies waited upon the tying of an apron string.

She stood with Ellen at the head of the broad main stairway leading from the lower hall to the second floor, on every hand closed mysterious doors, and there admonished her. The early morning was bright and the river sparkled in the sun. Ellen's body was sore, but her spirit marched bravely.

"Now, what you don't need of this you don't have to take to yourself." Fetzer cocked her smooth head upon one side and looked at Ellen, her eye expressing increasing satisfaction with her acolyte. "I give always this instruction; some don't like it, but they do it; others don't like it and they leave, and I'm glad they're gone—what lumps I had already—oh, my! Well, a bath every day, morning, afternoon, or night, it makes no difference, but a bath." Mrs. Fetzer liked to say "bath"; the th was an achievement, v she had not conquered. "In the morning a blue dress and white apron—every day a clean one, you don't have to do the washing nor yet the ironing. In the afternoon a black dress and a little apron and cap. I have some you can borrow. Rubber heels on your shoes and always a low woice. It should be our object in such a position to be as little seen and heard as possible with faithfulness to our duty." The last sentence had been memorized from "The Expert Maid and How to Train Her." "We speak when we are spoken to and we hear nothing that is not meant for us to hear. The mistress in a well-conducted home respects the independence of her maid and the maid respects the independence of her mistress. The two spheres are on the same plane, but they do not commingle.

"Now we go through the house." She spoke more briskly, glad that the theoretical portion of her address was safely delivered. "This is her sitting-room."

Ellen looked with awe at the large bay-windowed room with its shrouded furniture.

"This is her bedroom and bath. Further back are guest-rooms and baths. Now on this other side are his bedroom and dressing-room, and from there a stairway goes down to his office. Now the other rooms on that side are guest-rooms, too, except this small one which is for sewing and this one where brushes and brooms and such things are kept." She pointed with pride to the shelves. "Soap, towels, ammonia, cloths.

"Upstairs, beside our bedrooms are other rooms for company and storage-rooms. These two floors are your care, and sometimes she may ask you to button a dress or something. Mostly she don't like people round her."

This comment upon her future mistress confirmed Ellen in a vague suspicion that Mrs. Lanfair was an old woman. It was like an old woman to need help and at the same time to resent it. She had the kindliest of intentions toward her.

Taken downstairs she was presented to the cook; then she and Mrs. Fetzer had their breakfast together in the little dining-room.

"They" were coming home, Fetzer said, in three weeks, and after breakfast preparations to receive them were begun. Windows were washed, curtains were unpacked and hung, and rugs were unrolled from moth-proof wrappings. After the first few days Fetzer left Ellen to proceed alone while she directed other operations in distant parts of the house. So pleased was she with her silent, capable assistant that, as she walked about, even her gait a little sidewise, she sang her favorite revival songs.

Harrisburg seen from the river front was a different place from Harrisburg seen from above the railroad yards. One found refreshment for one's eye at every glance, in fine old trees, beautiful against the winter sky, in the broad river and in the distant movement of trains on the other bank which suggested, not showers of grime, but romantic journeys. Heard at this distance their roar did not disturb sleep, but induced pleasant dreams.

One had at hand food for one's soul. Fetzer exhibited with pride the long parlors and the library with its many cases of books, its deep chairs, its blackened fireplace, and its shaded lamps. She saw the hunger in Ellen's eyes.

"You dare read them," she offered. "I take the responsibility."

Ellen went with Fetzer to a Methodist church and there was presented as "Miss Lewis." She felt for the first time the anomalous character of her position which was uncomfortable even though it was only temporary.

Fetzer corrected her but once. At her suggestion Ellen bought a winter dress and hat and coat, and when the new dress came home, she put it on and inspected herself in the glass. The view did not satisfy her. She studied her profile, then she unbraided her thick hair and coiled it loosely on the top of her head. Ringlets escaped and curled back on her neck and over her forehead, low and broad and white, without wrinkle, like the favorite forehead of mediÆval romance. She put on her dress again and smiled and flushed as she did long ago when she studied the effect of her red necktie.

Fetzer flushed, but she did not smile. She laced and interlaced her fingers and exhibited an uneasiness apparently inappropriate to the occasion. Like Stephen, she misunderstood entirely the vagaries of Hilda's mind.

"I hardly knew you! It's all right for you and me when we're by ourselves, but not for about your work. It's too fancy."

Ellen smiled and braided her hair in the old fashion at the back of her head.

In mid-January Fetzer received the cablegram for which she had been watching, and immediately the machinery of the establishment, so carefully oiled and inspected, began to revolve. She remained cool, though great matters waited upon her word.

The doors were opened into the beautiful rooms and were left open, shades were lifted, sunshine streamed in where it had been long excluded, potted plants were set in jardiniÈres, magazines were arranged in orderly rows on the library table, fires were laid and bells were tested. Even the odor of the house changed; the faint mustiness vanished, and a sensitive Ellen sniffed with delight the fragrance of flowers and the scents of fine soaps placed by her in tiled bathrooms.

Through a door under the stairway drifted a new odor, the faint, pleasant smell of drugs. Sent to the offices she trembled with a sad and reminiscent delight. There were three large rooms in line—a waiting-room with comfortable chairs and books and plants and a canary in a sunny window, an office with three desks and tall filing-cabinets, and beyond an examining-room from which opened a little laboratory. In the second room a short, middle-aged woman in a blue serge dress stood before a filing-cabinet; in the third a tall nurse in a white uniform was in the act of mounting a stepladder before one of many cupboards.

"Are you Ellen?" the nurse called from the ladder. "I'm Miss Knowlton and that is Miss MacVane. Fetzer says you work quietly and you don't drop things. Those are fine compliments from her."

Ellen smiled. Miss MacVane lifted her head and glanced in her direction, then bent closer to her work. Ellen went into the inner room and held out her hands for the bottles.

"Put them on the table, each shelf together."

When the bottles were placed, she washed the shelves while Miss Knowlton examined the drugs, pouring some away and making frequent notes on a tablet.

The next afternoon Ellen helped to complete the task. At five o'clock everything was in order, even to a little stand on Miss Knowlton's desk which held flasks of dilating fluids and droppers. Miss MacVane was frequently called to the telephone.

"To-morrow, yes." The telephone rang again. "To-morrow, yes. Nine o'clock. I'll give you the first appointment. I'm sorry to hear that."

Many persons, it seemed, awaited the return of Dr. Lanfair.

Fetzer went to the little side door, through which Ellen had learned all the employees went and came, to speak to silent Fickes, who brought round in succession three cars of different styles and who said that doubtless the car which the boss brought home would be fit only for the junk-heap.

Ellen felt a growing excitement and a fear that she would not know her part. She depended upon Fetzer to support her, and Fetzer, as though she understood her anxiety, patted her arm encouragingly.

At ten o'clock Fickes brought his master and mistress home. Ellen, bidden to open the door, saw Fetzer stand with one arm upon the other like a feudal retainer while there entered a short, slender woman and a tall man.

It was the relation of one to the other in height which first startled her—she had seen those figures before! For a moment she was incredulous, then dumfounded; a moment more and she realized her stupidity. No wonder that her father had stared at this house! No wonder that he had come close to read the doctor's name! Her knees trembled and excited thrills ran up and down her body.

Both the newcomers shook hands with Fetzer.

"I'm glad to see you back!"

There was a light, slightly scornful laugh.

"Glad to see me too, Fetzer?"

"I mean you too, Mrs. Lanfair."

Ellen trembled. They had not looked at her, but what would they say when they did? Would not Mrs. Fetzer be astounded? How were explanations to be begun? Should she take a step forward or wait for their eyes to find her? She hoped that she would not cry!

But her anxiety was wasted. Neither Stephen nor Hilda greeted her, unless Hilda's careless "A new housemaid, Fetzer?" could be called a greeting. She spoke as though the matter of a new housemaid was one which concerned her only slightly.

"Yes, Mrs. Lanfair. Ellen Lewis is her name."

At last Stephen nodded absently in her direction. He wore a gray suit like the one he had worn at Ephrata. He moved and spoke more quickly and nervously, and his lower lip twitched occasionally.

"Miss Knowlton and Miss MacVane here?"

"Yes, and everything is in order." Fetzer looked at Ellen, thinking sympathetically that she seemed afraid. The ways of the Lanfairs had once paralyzed her, too.

Hilda paused on the second step. She was more slender and there was a queer change in her aspect; her dress was tawdry and ill-fitting. Dr. Good would have detected from her appearance and from her moroseness and indifference a marked advance in her malady.

"You can't wait till morning!" she said lightly.

Fetzer lifted one of the bags.

"Take this, Ellen."

Ellen followed Fetzer who followed Hilda to her bedroom. Ellen did not look back; there would be no immediate and dramatic presentation of herself. In the bedroom she set down the bag where she was told.

"You may go, Ellen."

Obeying with relief she heard a question.

"A little stupid is she, Fetzer? She looks stupid."

Ellen went out into the hall and back to the door which led to the service stairs. In her room she opened her books and finished her evening's task. She had power of concentration equal to her strength of purpose; besides, the event was too startling and complex to be approached at once.

An hour later, sitting up in bed with her hands clasped round her knees, she heard the door open.

"Are you awake yet?"

"Yes."

Fetzer sat down on the foot of the bed. The pale moonlight was not bright enough to show the flush on her cheek, but the trembling of her body shook the bed.

"Why, Mrs. Fetzer, what ails you?" Asking the question Ellen believed that she understood. Mrs. Lanfair had spoken unkindly.

But Fetzer's thoughts were not upon Hilda.

"I'd do anything in the world for him!" she declared.

"For Dr. Lanfair?"

"There are some that are just like beasts and some that are all the while angels," wept Fetzer.

Ellen waited. Neither description seemed to fit Lanfair.

"If it weren't for him I'd be blind. I was shot once. My husband shot me when he was drunk. He was good-for-nothing. They gave up my eyes in the hospital, doctors and doctors examined me and gave me up, both my eyes, but he wouldn't have it. He watched me day after day, sitting sometimes for hours by me. They told me, when they took the bandage off, to look at the beautiful river." There was scorn in Fetzer's voice. "I looked at him. He was more to me than any river."

The multitude of her emotions kept Ellen silent.

"Jim's in jail for another year. He got a long term. I've often prayed that God would convert him and take him home. That's the only thing for him."

Ellen knew no consolatory word which seemed adequate.

"She thought I was stupid!" said she at last.

Fetzer answered coldly.

"I hope you won't be spited at that!"

"I'm not spited. Perhaps I am stupid."

Fetzer rose from the bed.

"I'm so tired I could drop. And nervous! Lay down and go to sleep, Ellen."

But sleep was not to be so easily commanded. Ellen sat long with her hands clasped round her knees. The strange impressions of that July afternoon came back to her; then in a wave grief wiped out all recollection of Hilda's behavior. She had never ceased to hope that she would find her father's friend, that he would in some fashion help her; but now she had seen him and he had not known her, had not even looked at her. She had no eyes for his disquiet. She felt alone in the great house. Presently her cheeks burned. She made no allowance for the transforming years which had changed her into a woman. She resented their failure to recognize her. When she was learned and famous and not until then she would tell them who she was! Now she hated them.