“Sick?  No,” replied Aunt Maria, crossly.

“I guess I will stay home with her, anyway,” Evelyn said, timidly.

“Well, you can do jest as you are a mind to,” said Aunt Maria.  “I’m goin’ to meetin’.  If folks want to act like fools, I ain’t goin’ to stay at home and coddle them.”

“Oh, Aunt Maria, I don’t think sister acts like a fool,” Evelyn said, in her sweet, distressed voice.  “She looks real pale and acts all tired out.”

“I guess she’ll survive it,” said Aunt Maria, pouring the coffee.

“Don’t you think I had better make some toast and a cup of tea for her, if she does say she doesn’t want any breakfast?”

“Maria Edgham is old enough to know her own mind, and if she says she don’t want any breakfast I’d let her go without till she was hungry,” said Aunt Maria.  She adored Maria above any living thing, and just in proportion to the adoration she felt angry with her.  It was a great relief to her not to see her.

“Aren’t you going up-stairs and see if you think sister is sick?” Evelyn asked, as Aunt Maria was tying her bonnet-strings.

“No, I ain’t,” replied Aunt Maria.  “It’s all I can do to walk to church.  I ain’t goin’ to climb the stairs for nothin’.  I ain’t worried a mite about her.”

After Aunt Maria was gone Evelyn made a slice of toast, placed it on a pretty plate, and made also some tea, which she poured into a very dainty cup.  Then she carried the toast and tea on a little tray up to Maria’s room.

“Please sit up and drink this tea and eat this toast, sister,” she said, pleadingly.

“Thank you, dear,” said Maria, “but I don’t feel as if I could eat anything.”

“It’s real nice,” said Evelyn, looking with a childish wistfulness from her sister to the toast.  Maria could not withstand the look.  She raised herself in bed and let Evelyn place the tray on her knees.  Then she forced herself to drink the tea and eat the toast.  Evelyn all the time watched her with that sweet wistfulness of expression which was one of her chief charms.  Evelyn, when she looked that way, was irresistible.  There was so much anxious love in her tender face that it made it fairly angelic.  Evelyn’s dark hair was tumbling about her face like a child’s, in a way which she often wore it when at home when there was no company.  It was tied with a white ribbon bow.  She wore a black skirt and a little red breakfast-jacket faced with white.  As her sister gradually despatched the tea and toast, the look of wistfulness on her face changed to one of radiant delight.  She clapped her hands.

“There,” she said, “I knew you would eat your breakfast if I brought it to you.  Wasn’t that toast nice?”

“Delicious.”

“I made it my own self.  Aunt Maria was cross.  Don’t you think it is odd that any one who loves anybody should ever be cross?”

“It often happens,” said Maria, laying back on her pillows.