On the day Tish sat up for the first time, Aggie and I went over to see her.  Hannah, the maid, had got her out of bed to a window, and Tish was sitting there with books all about her.  It is in times of enforced physical idleness that most of Tish’s ideas come to her, and Aggie had reminded me of that fact on the way over.

“You remember, Lizzie,” she said, “how last winter when she was getting over the grippe she took up that correspondence-school course in swimming.  She’s reading, watch her books.  It’ll probably be suffrage or airships.”

Tish always believes anything she reads.  She had been quite sure she could swim after six correspondence lessons.  She had all the movements exactly, and had worried her trained nurse almost into hysteria for a week by turning on her face in bed every now and then and trying the overhand stroke.  She got very expert, and had decided she’d swim regularly, and even had Charlie Sands show her the Australian crawl business so she could go over some time and swim the Channel.  It was a matter of breathing and of changing positions, she said, and was up to intelligence rather than muscle.

Then when she was quite strong, she had gone to the natatorium.  Aggie and I went along, not that we were any good in emergency, but because Tish had convinced us there would be no emergency.  And Tish went in at the deep end of the pool, head first, according to diagram, and did not come up.

Well, there seemed to be nothing threatening in what Tish was reading this time.  She had ordered some books for Maria Lee’s children and was looking them over before she sent them.  The “Young Woods-man” was one and “Camper Craft” was another.  How I shudder when I recall those names!

Aggie had baked an angel cake and I had brought over a jar of cookies.  But Tish only thanked us and asked Hannah to take them out.  Even then we were not suspicious.  Tish sat back among her pillows and said very little.  The conversation was something like this:—­

  Aggie:  Well, you’re up again:  I hope to goodness it will be a lesson
  to you.  If you don’t mind, I’d like Hannah to cut that cake.  It fell
  in the middle.

  Tish:  Do you know that the Indians never sweetened their food and that
  they developed absolutely perfect teeth?

  Aggie:  Well, they never had any automobiles either, but they didn’t
  develop wings.

  Lizzie:  Don’t you want that window closed?  I’m in a draft.

  Tish:  Air in motion never gave any one a cold.  We do not catch cold;
  we catch heat.  It’s ridiculous the way we shut ourselves up in houses
  and expect to remain well.

  Aggie:  Well, I’b catchig sobethig.

  Lizzie (changing the subject):  Would you like me to help you dress? 
  It might rest your back to have your corset on.

  Tish (firmly):  I shall never wear a corset again.