She spoke with a slightly defiant tone of self-possession.  I tried to play up to her interpretation of her role.  “The little Harris boy?” I said, sitting up in bed.  “What in the world is he bringing me a letter for?” Ev’leen Ann, with her usual clear perception of the superfluous in conversation, vouchsafed no opinion on a matter where she had no information, but went downstairs and brought back the note.  It was of four lines, and—­surprisingly enough—­from old Mrs. Purdon, who asked me abruptly if I would have my husband take me to see her.  She specified, and underlined the specification, that I was to come “right off, and in the automobile.”  Wondering extremely at this mysterious bidding I sought out Paul, who obediently cranked up our small car and carried me off.  There was no sign of Horace about the house, but some distance on the other side of the village we saw his tall, stooping figure swinging along the road.  He carried a cane and was characteristically occupied in violently switching off the heads from the wayside weeds as he walked.  He refused our offer to take him in, alleging that he was out for exercise and to reduce his flesh—­an ancient jibe at his bony frame which made him for an instant show a leathery smile.

There was, of course, no one at Mrs. Purdon’s to let us into the tiny, three-roomed house, since the bedridden invalid spent her days there alone while ’Niram worked his team on other people’s fields.  Not knowing what we might find, Paul stayed outside in the car, while I stepped inside in answer to Mrs. Purdon’s “Come in, why don’t you!” which sounded quite as dry as usual.  But when I saw her I knew that things were not as usual.

She lay flat on her back, the little emaciated wisp of humanity, hardly raising the piecework quilt enough to make the bed seem occupied, and to account for the thin, worn old face on the pillow.  But as I entered the room her eyes seized on mine, and I was aware of nothing but them and some fury of determination behind them.  With a fierce heat of impatience at my first natural but quickly repressed exclamation of surprise she explained briefly that she wanted Paul to lift her into the automobile and take her into the next township to the Hulett farm.  “I’m so shrunk away to nothin’, I know I can lay on the back seat if I crook myself up,” she said, with a cool accent but a rather shaky voice.  Seeming to realize that even her intense desire to strike the matter-of-fact note could not take the place of any and all explanation of her extraordinary request, she added, holding my eyes steady with her own:  “Emma Hulett’s my twin sister.  I guess it ain’t so queer, my wanting to see her.”

I thought, of course, we were to be used as the medium for some strange, sudden family reconciliation, and went out to ask Paul if he thought he could carry the old invalid to the car.  He replied that, so far as that went, he could carry so thin an old body ten times around the town, but that he refused absolutely to take such a risk without authorization from her doctor.  I remembered the burning eyes of resolution I had left inside, and sent him to present his objections to Mrs. Purdon herself.