she wa’n’t any too strong; but she seemed to think she could and Luella seemed to think so, too, so she went over and did all the work—­washed, and ironed, and baked, while Luella sat and rocked.  Maria didn’t live long afterward.  She began to fade away just the same fashion the others had.  Well, she was warned, but she acted real mad when folks said anythin’:  said Luella was a poor, abused woman, too delicate to help herself, and they’d ought to be ashamed, and if she died helpin’ them that couldn’t help themselves she would—­and she did.

“‘I s’pose Maria has gone home,’ says I to Luella, when I had gone in and sat down opposite her.

“’Yes, Maria went half an hour ago, after she had got supper and washed the dishes,’ says Luella, in her pretty way.

“’I suppose she has got a lot of work to do in her own house to-night,’ says I, kind of bitter, but that was all thrown away on Luella Miller.  It seemed to her right that other folks that wa’n’t any better able than she was herself should wait on her, and she couldn’t get it through her head that anybody should think it wa’n’t right.

“‘Yes,’ says Luella, real sweet and pretty, ’yes, she said she had to do her washin’ to-night.  She has let it go for a fortnight along of comin’ over here.’

“‘Why don’t she stay home and do her washin’ instead of comin’ over here and doin’ your work, when you are just as well able, and enough sight more so, than she is to do it?’ says I.

“Then Luella she looked at me like a baby who has a rattle shook at it.  She sort of laughed as innocent as you please.  ’Oh, I can’t do the work myself, Miss Anderson,’ says she.  ’I never did.  Maria has to do it.’

“Then I spoke out:  ‘Has to do it I’ says I.  ‘Has to do it!’ She don’t have to do it, either.  Maria Brown has her own home and enough to live on.  She ain’t beholden to you to come over here and slave for you and kill herself.’

“Luella she jest set and stared at me for all the world like a doll-baby that was so abused that it was comin’ to life.

“‘Yes,’ says I, ‘she’s killin’ herself.  She’s goin’ to die just the way Erastus did, and Lily, and your Aunt Abby.  You’re killin’ her jest as you did them.  I don’t know what there is about you, but you seem to bring a curse,’ says I.  ’You kill everybody that is fool enough to care anythin’ about you and do for you.’

“She stared at me and she was pretty pale.

“‘And Maria ain’t the only one you’re goin’ to kill,’ says I.  ‘You’re goin’ to kill Doctor Malcom before you’re done with him.’

“Then a red colour came flamin’ all over her face.  ‘I ain’t goin’ to kill him, either,’ says she, and she begun to cry.

“‘Yes, you be!’ says I. Then I spoke as I had never spoke before.  You see, I felt it on account of Erastus.  I told her that she hadn’t any business to think of another man after she’d been married to one that had died for her:  that she was a dreadful woman; and she was, that’s true enough, but sometimes I have wondered lately if she knew it—­if she wa’n’t like a baby with scissors in its hand cuttin’ everybody without knowin’ what it was doin’.