“Eudora,” said Mrs. Richards in a low tone, “it might be well for Anna to have a maid, and this one is certainly different from the others who have applied.”

“But the child.  We can’t be bothered with a child.  Evidently he is not governed at all, and brother’s wife coming by and by.”

This last caught Adah’s ear and changed the whole current of her thoughts and wishes.  Greatly to Mrs. Richards’ surprise, she said abruptly, “If I cannot see Miss Anna, I need not trouble you longer.  When does the next train go west?”

Adah’s voice never faltered, though her heart seemed bursting from her throat, for she had not the most remote idea as to where the next train going west would take her.  She had reached a point when she no longer thought or reasoned; she would leave Terrace Hill; that was all she knew, except that in her mind there was a vague fancy or hope that she might meet Irving Stanley again.  Not George, she did not even think of him, as she stood before Dr. Richards’ mother, who looked at her in surprise, marveling that she had given up so quietly what she had apparently so much desired.

Very civilly she told her when the next train went west, and then added kindly, “You cannot walk.  You must stay here till car-time, when Jim will carry you back.”

At this unexpected kindness Adah’s calmness gave way, and sitting down by the table, she laid her face upon it and sobbed almost convulsively.

“Mamma tie, mam-ma tie,” and he pulled Mrs. Richards’ skirts vigorously indicating that she must do something for mamma.

Just then the doorbell rang.  It was the doctor, come to visit Anna, and both Mrs. Richards and Eudora left the room at once.

“Oh, why did I come here, and where shall I go?” Adah moaned, as a sense of her lonely condition came over her.

“Will my Father in heaven direct me? will He tell me what to do?” she murmured brokenly, praying softly to herself that a way might be opened for her, a path which she could tread.

She could not tell how it was, but a quiet peace stole over her, a feeling which had no thought or care for the future, and it had been many nights since she had slept as sweetly or soundly as she did for one half hour with her head upon the table in that little room at Terrace Hill, Dr. Richards’ home and Anna’s.  She did not see the good-humored face which looked in at her a moment, nor hear the whispering in the hall; neither did she know when Willie, nothing loath, was coaxed from the room and carried up the stairs into the upper hall, where he was purposely left to himself, while Pamelia, the mother of Jim’s two pairs of twins, went to Anna’s room, where she was to sit for an hour or so, while the ladies had their lunch.  Anna’s head was better; the paroxysms of pain were leas frequent than in the morning, and she lay upon her pillow, her eyes closed wearily, and her thoughts with Charlie Millbrook.  Why had he never written?—­why never come to see her?