“Jane ill!  Jane dying!” exclaimed Miss Rosetta.  “Why, she was the healthiest girl I ever knew!  But then I’ve never seen her, nor heard from her, since she got married fifteen years ago.  I dare say her husband was a brute and neglected her, and she’s pined away by slow degrees.  I’ve no faith in husbands.  Look at Charlotte!  Everybody knows how Jacob Wheeler used her.  To be sure, she deserved it, but—­”

“Mrs. Roberts’ husband is dead,” said Mr. Patterson.  “Died about two months ago, I understand, and she has a little baby six months old, and she thought perhaps Mrs. Wheeler would take it for old times’ sake—­”

“Did Charlotte ask you to call and tell me this?” demanded Miss Rosetta eagerly.

“No; she just told me what was in the letter.  She didn’t mention you; but I thought, perhaps, you ought to be told—­”

“I knew it,” said Miss Rosetta in a tone of bitter assurance.  “I could have told you so.  Charlotte wouldn’t even let me know that Jane was ill.  Charlotte would be afraid I would want to get the baby, seeing that Jane and I were such intimate friends long ago.  And who has a better right to it than me, I should like to know?  Ain’t I the oldest?  And haven’t I had experience in bringing up babies?  Charlotte needn’t think she is going to run the affairs of our family just because she happened to get married.  Jacob Wheeler—­”

“I must be going,” said Mr. Patterson, gathering up his reins thankfully.

“I am much obliged to you for coming to tell me about Jane,” said Miss Rosetta, “even though you have wasted a lot of precious time getting it out.  If it hadn’t been for you I suppose I should never have known it at all.  As it is, I shall start for town just as soon as I can get ready.”

“You’ll have to hurry if you want to get ahead of Mrs. Wheeler,” advised Mr. Patterson.  “She’s packing her trunk and going on the morning train.”

“I’ll pack a valise and go on the afternoon train,” retorted Miss Rosetta triumphantly.  “I’ll show Charlotte she isn’t running the Ellis affairs.  She married out of them into the Wheelers.  She can attend to them.  Jacob Wheeler was the most—­”

But Mr. Patterson had driven away.  He felt that he had done his duty in the face of fearful odds, and he did not want to hear anything more about Jacob Wheeler.

Rosetta Ellis and Charlotte Wheeler had not exchanged a word for ten years.  Before that time they had been devoted to each other, living together in the little Ellis cottage on the White Sands road, as they had done ever since their parents’ death.  The trouble began when Jacob Wheeler had commenced to pay attention to Charlotte, the younger and prettier of two women who had both ceased to be either very young or very pretty.  Rosetta had been bitterly opposed to the match from the first.  She vowed she had no use for Jacob Wheeler.  There were not lacking malicious people to hint that this was