"I cannot say that I am quite as well as usual. I meant to see you in a day or two. Now I will wait a little longer."

"Had you better wait?"

"Yes, I think so. I am not going to spoil Fidelia's pleasure, now that she is at home for a few days, and I will wait. It won't really make any difference."

"Eunice," said the doctor gravely, "are you afraid of--anything?"

A sudden wave of colour made her face for the moment beautiful. Tears came into her eyes, but she smiled as she said,--

"No, not afraid; I hope I should not be afraid even if I should be going to suffer all that I saw her suffer."

"Eunice, why have you not told me before? It was hardly friendly to be silent with any such thought in your mind."

"Well, it is as I said. A little sooner or later could make no difference."

"And because you did not like to make your friends unhappy you ran this risk."

The doctor was standing with his face to the door at which Fidelia at the moment entered, and his tone changed.

"Well, to-morrow you must send your little girl down to see my little girls, unless they should hear of her home-coming, and be up here this afternoon. No; they shall not come, nor any one else. You shall have this day to yourselves. And mind one thing--there must be no school-books about during vacation time. Miss Eunice, I will trust to you to see to that."

And then he went away.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE SISTERS.

"Are you really well, Eunice? You don't look very well," said Fidelia, kneeling down beside her sister, and looking wistfully into her face.

"Are you sure that you are well?"

"I am pretty well, dear. I have been about all the winter pretty much as usual. Who has been telling that I have not been well?"

"No one has written, in so many words, that you were sick. But you don't seem to have been about among the neighbours as much as usual, and you have given up your cla.s.s in the Sunday school."

"Yes, I gave it up for a while, but I have taken it again. I thought I had better give it up in the beginning of the winter, as I could not be quite regular, because of the bad roads. And Mr Fuller--the new teacher--could take it as well as not. He was glad to take it; and he is a born teacher. He has done good work among the boys on Sundays and week-days too. But he has gone away, and I have my cla.s.s again. Was it because you thought I was sick that you came home, dear?"

"Well, I wanted to be sure about you. And I got homesick when I saw the other girls going. I am glad I came: I can help in the garden."

"Yes; and ten days in the garden will do more good to your summer work than ten days at your books could do. I am very glad you have come home."

"I only brought one book. I must take a little time for it. Now I will get dinner if you will tell me what to do. I am hungry."

"Of course you are. And I can scarcely wait to hear all you have to tell me."

She did not need to wait. Fidelia laid the table, talking all the time as she went from pantry to cupboard; and Eunice listened as she prepared the dinner with her own hands--as she did every day, for there was no "help" in the house. It was a very simple meal, and it was spread in the room in which it was prepared.

It was the winter kitchen and the summer dining-room--a beautiful room, perfect in neatness and simplicity, and in the tasteful arrangement of its old-fashioned furniture. There was a "secretary" of dark wood, which might have "come over in the _Mayflower_" between the windows, with a bookcase above it; there were a tall clock and two carved armchairs, a chintz-covered sofa which looked new beside the rest of the things, and a rocking-chair or two. There were pretty muslin curtains on the windows, and pictures on the walls; and except for the stove that stood against the chimney-place one might easily have mistaken the room, and called it the parlour, for there was no trace of kitchen utensil or kitchen soil to be seen. The utensils were all in the "sink room" which opened near the back door, and the soil was nowhere.

All the house was beautiful in its perfect neatness. Everything in it was old, and some of the things were ancient, and had a history. A story could be told of oak chest and bookcase and bureau. Some a.s.sociation, sad or sweet, clung to every old-fashioned ornament and to every picture on the wall.

"I don't believe there is so pleasant a house in all the state as this is," said Fidelia gravely.

Her sister smiled. "You have not seen many of the houses in the state,"

said she.

"But I have seen several. And I think I know."

They had the long afternoon to themselves. The elder sister had something to tell about the quiet winter days, many of which she had spent alone. She said nothing of loneliness, however; she called it restful quiet. She had had visitors enough, and every one had been mindful and kind, from Judge Leonard, who had sent his sleigh to take her to church on stormy Sundays, to Jabez Ainsworth, who had shovelled her paths and fed her hens and cow all the winter, and left her nothing troublesome or toilsome to do. She told of the work which had occupied her, the books she had read, and the letters she had received and written, and enlarged on several items of neighbourhood news which she had only had time to mention in her letter.

Then Fidelia had her turn: nothing that she could tell could fail to interest her sister as to the months in which they had been separated.

Her studies, her friends, her room-mate, little Nellie Austin, the youngest pupil in the school; the teachers, the school routine, household affairs--all were full of interest to Eunice, who had been a pupil herself long ago; but she listened in silence to it all. Even when Fidelia began to plan a new life for them when her school days should be over, and she ready for work, she only said "Yes" and "No,"

and "We must wait and see." Fidelia was too eager in her speech and in her plans to notice the silence at the moment, but she remembered it afterwards.

The next morning Fidelia was awakened by a kiss from the smiling lips of her sister.

"Breakfast is ready," said she.

"You don't say so? And I meant to be up to get the breakfast myself?"

"You did better to sleep on."

"I woke at five; and, oh, it did seem so good to shut my eyes with no dread of the bell, and so I went to sleep again!"

Eunice went out and in while her sister dressed; and the talk flowed on till breakfast was over and all the things put away. Eunice listened to it all with mingled feelings, rejoicing in her sister's eager interest and in her success, but at the same time missing something for which she had longed and prayed, and for which she was telling herself that she must wait patiently a while.

Then Fidelia went out to the garden to see what was to be done there.

She walked up and down the broad path, considering ways and means of planning how the very most could be accomplished during the fortnight of her stay.

"It will take most of my time; but I am glad I came, and I shan't oversleep another day. For, whatever Eunice may say, she is not strong."

The garden could not be neglected. Half their living came from the garden and the adjoining fields, where their pretty brown cow was patiently searching among the last year's tufts of gra.s.s for some sweeter morsel. The pretty creature came to the fence to be petted and praised, and her mistress did not disappoint her.

"How much do you suppose your cow understands of all you're sayin' to her?" said a voice at her elbow.

Fidelia started.

"Oh, she understands! Good morning, Jabez;" and she held out her hand to a tall loose-jointed lad, with a sunburnt, boyish, but very pleasant face, who had come up the hill from the meadow unseen by her.

"You look _well_," said he, after a moment's examination of her face.

"Thank you," said Fidelia, laughing.

"I mean, you don't look sick," said he.

"Why should I? What have _you_ been doing this winter?"

"I have been at school. We had a new teacher--a chap from Amherst--one who has to teach and pay his own way. Yes, I got along pretty well-- studied hard, if you can believe it."

"Well, what have you done?"