Dick was silent.

“And then when papa goes,” continued Mrs. Whitney, “why, then, my boy, it is very hard not to cry.”

Here was something that the boy could grasp; and he seized it with avidity.

“And you stop crying for us,” he cried; “I know now why you always put on your prettiest gown, and play games with us the evening after papa goes.  I know now.”

“Here are three letters,” cried the parson, hurrying in, and tossing them over to the boy.  “And Polly Pepper has written to me, too.”

Dick screamed with delight.  “Two for me; one from Ben, and one from Grandpapa!”

“And mine is from Phronsie,” said Mrs. Whitney, seizing an epistle carefully printed in blue crayon.

But although there were three letters from home, none of them carried the news of what was going on there.  None of them breathed a syllable that Cousin Eunice Chatterton was ill with a low fever, aggravated by nervous prostration; and that Mrs. Pepper and Polly were having a pretty hard time of it.  On the contrary, every bit of news was of the cheeriest nature; Jasper tucked on a postscript to his father’s letter, in which he gave the latest bulletin of his school life.  And Polly did the same thing to Ben’s letter.  Even Phronsie went into a long detail concerning the new developments of a wonderful kitten she had left at home, to take her visit to Badgertown, so the two recipients never missed the lack of information in regard to the household life, from which they were shut out.

Only once Mrs. Whitney said thoughtfully, as she folded her letter and slipped it back into its envelope, “They don’t speak of Mrs. Chatterton.  I presume she has changed her plans, and is going to remain longer at her nephew’s.”

“I hope she’ll live there always,” declared Dick, looking up savagely from Ben’s letter.  “What an old guy she is, mamma!”

“Dick, Dick,” said his mother reprovingly, “she is our guest, you know.”

“Not if she is at her nephew’s,” said Dick triumphantly, turning back to his letter.

Polly at this identical minute was slowly ascending the stairs, a tray in one hand, the contents of which she was anxiously regarding on the way.

“I do hope it is right now,” she said, and presently knocked at Mrs. Chatterton’s door.

“Come in,” said that lady’s voice fretfully.  And “Do close the door,” before Polly and her tray were well within.

Polly shut the door gently, and approached the bedside.

“I am so faint I do not know that I can take any,” said Mrs. Chatterton.  Whether it was her white cashmere dressing-robe, and her delicate lace cap that made her face against the pillows seem wan and white, Polly did not know.  But it struck her that she looked more ill than usual, and she said earnestly, “I am so sorry I wasn’t quicker.”

“There is no call for an apology from you,” said Mrs. Chatterton coldly.  “Set the tray down on the table, and get a basin of water; I need to be bathed.”