She did not need Betsey’s ecstatic welcome; the road was clear and straight before her now.  Preparing the little dinner was a triumph; reducing the kitchen to something like its old order, she found absorbing and exhilarating.  “We’ll bake to-morrow—­we’ll clean that thoroughly to-morrow—­we’ll make out a list of necessities to-morrow,” said Susan.

She insisted upon Philip’s changing his wet shoes for slippers when the boys came home at six o’clock; she gave little Jim a sisterly kiss.

“Gosh, this is something like!” said Jim simply, eyes upon the hot dinner and the orderly kitchen.  “This house has been about the rottenest place ever, for I don’t know how long!”

Philip did not say anything, but Susan did not misread the look in his tired eyes.  After dinner they kept him a place by the fire while he went up to see his mother.  When he came down twenty minutes later he seemed troubled.

“Mother says that we’re imposing on you, Sue,” he said.  “She made me promise to make you go home tomorrow.  She says you’ve had enough to bear!”

Betsey sat up with a rueful exclamation, and Jimmy grunted a disconsolate “Gosh!” but Susan only smiled.

“That’s only part of her—­trouble, Phil,” she said, reassuringly.  And presently she serenely led them all upstairs.  “We’ve got to make those beds, Betts,” said Susan.

“Mother may hear us,” said Betsey, fearfully.

“I hope she will!” Susan said.  But, if she did, no sound came from the mother’s room.  After awhile Susan noticed that her door, which had been ajar, was shut tight.

She lay awake late that night, Betts’ tear-stained but serene little face close to her shoulder, Betts’ hand still tight in hers.  The wind shook the casements, and the unwearied storm screamed about the house.  Susan thought of the woman in the next room, wondered if she was lying awake, too, alone with sick and sorrowful memories?

She herself fell asleep full of healthy planning for to-morrow’s meals and house-cleaning, too tired and content for dreams.

Anna came quietly home on the next Saturday evening, to find the little group just ready to gather about the dinner-table.  A fire glowed in the grate, the kitchen beyond was warm and clean and delightfully odorous.  She said very little then, took her share, with obvious effort at first, in their talk, sat behind Betsey’s chair when the four presently were coaxed by Jim into a game of “Hearts,” and advised her little sister how to avoid the black queen.

But later, just before they went upstairs, when they were all grouped about the last of the fire, she laid her hands on Susan’s shoulders, and stood Susan off, to look at her fairly.

“No words for it, Sue,” said Anna steadily.

“Ah, don’t, Nance—­” Susan began.  But in another instant they were in each other’s arms, and crying, and much later that evening, after a long talk, Betsey confided to Susan that it was the first time Anna had cried.