Left alone, Lanse and Celia looked at each other.

“Well, old girl—­” began Lansing, gently.

“O Lanse!” breathed Celia.

He patted her shoulder.  “Bear up, dear.  It’s tough to give up college for a year—­”

“Oh, that’s not it!” cried the girl, and buried her face in a sofa pillow.

“No, that’s not it,” he answered, under his breath.  He shook his shoulders and walked away to the fire, stood staring down into it for a minute with sober eyes, then drew a long breath and came back to his sister.

“It’s a relief that there’s something we can do to help her get well,” he said, slowly.  “And she will get well, Celia—­she will—­she must!”

* * * * *

CHAPTER II

“Where’s the shawl-strap?”

“Charlotte, wait just a moment; are you perfectly sure that mother’s dressing sack and knit slippers are in the case?  Nobody saw them put in, and I don’t—­”

“Justin, run down-stairs, please, and get that unopened package of water-biscuit.  You’ll find it on the pantry shelf, I think.”

“Lanse, if the furnace runs all night with the draught on, your fire will be burned out in the morning, and it will take an extra amount of coal to get it started again.”

“Where’s Jeff?  He must be told about—­”

“Put mother’s overshoes to warm.”

“I have left two hundred dollars to your credit at the bank, Lansing, and I—­”

“Lanse, did you telephone for—­”

“Where did Celia put the—­”

“Listen, all of you.  I—­”

“What did Jeff do with that small white—­”

“Silence!” shouted Lansing, above the din.  “Can’t you people get these traps together without all yelling at once?  You will have mother so used up she can’t start.”

Mrs. Birch smiled at her tall son from the easy chair where she had been placed ten minutes before, her family protesting that they could finish the numberless small tasks yet to be done.  It was nine o’clock in the evening, and it lacked but an hour of train-time.

They all looked at the slender figure in the easy chair.  They had learned in these last two weeks to take note of their mother’s appearance as, with easy confidence in her exhaustless strength, they had never done before.  Since the night when they had learned that she was not quite well, they had discovered for themselves the delicacy of the smiling face, the thinness of the graceful body, the many small signs by which those who run may read the evidences of lessened vitality, if their eyes are once opened.  They wondered that they had not seen it all before, and found the only explanation in the cheery, undaunted spirit which had covered up every sign of fatigue.

“She is too tired already,” declared Celia.  “Run away, and let father and me finish.”