the poor creature into the house. And 'Oh, hear her groan!' I said, yes, she was easy to hear. I guess Amos felt all right; but you know niggers are biddable, and whatever they think, the creatures do like they're told.

"Well, I walked up-stairs. She was there in the guest chamber on one of the twin beds with the flowery card, 'Sleep gently in this quiet room,' etcetery, over the towsledest head and sech skirts! She'd been having a time for sure. Herself had put a wet ice bandage on the woman's head and a hot-water bag to her feet, and she was a-laying her hands, her own pretty, soft, little, white, trembling hands, to her awful shoes, but says I:

"'You stop! Don't you tech her!'

"'I must,' says she; 'they're soaked.'

"'Don't you see what's the matter of her?' say I. 'She's dead drunk!'

"I reckoned she'd deny it. Not a bit. 'I suppose so,' says she; 'that's why I wouldn't let them call the amberlance.'

"'And do you mean to keep her here?' says I. 'That drunken rubbish?'

"Well, she does; she was awful sorry for the trouble to us, but the woman fell down at her door, and she was in dire misery, and Miss Mercy she felt she had got to take her in. My word, Miss Patsy, I had to shet my teeth a minute to keep back my feelings, but every word I said was: 'I guess you better move that other bed out and then you can burn this one!' Heavens, I ain't going to describe the next hour till the doctor come. Now, she's laying comfortable in the doctor's gown, in that nice clean bed, and I've made her chicken broth and mustard plasters and everything else for her comfort.

"When the doctor come, she said, 'This goes the limit,' and then she bit off the rest and swallered it and said, 'We'll have to scrub her.' And we did—with washing powder and scouring soap. I hope it hurt, but I'm 'fraid it didn't."

"How does Nellie take it?"

The sorely tried Mrs. Biff grinned. "'Tis that keeps me from quite sinking; she is most dretful horrified and vowing she's going to leave."

However, Nellie did not go; it was the castaway whom they had succored who awoke in her right mind before any one was stirring the next morning, clothed herself, for lack of her own rags (which were airing in the back yard), in a decent brown dress, cloak and hat of the doctor's from the guest-room closet, put on the doctor's large, serviceable boots, and gathering the loose silver and three one-dollar banknotes left in Katy's cash box, otherwise her "cup" from the pantry shelf, departed into the unknown nether world from whence she came.

"And a mercy she didn't murder us in our beds!" opined Nellie; "maybe she will yet!"

Nellie's prophecy appeared less grotesque the following week when her young man, Phil, by Christian name—I did not come to know his surname—discovered at the police station or the engine house (he frequenting both places in his wealth of leisure) that the castaway had escaped from a quarantined house full of smallpox, in a little hamlet near by. Here was a situation! Nellie vowed she wouldn't sleep a wink were she Mrs. Kane or Amos, particularly Amos, because colored folk took naturally to smallpox.

Amos only grinned; but Mrs. Kane was palpably nervous and began inquiring into symptoms of what Nellie termed "the dread disease."

Presently she was feeling them faithfully. And Katy shrugged the shoulder of scorn. But scorn turned into consternation by Monday, for an agitated neighbor came to the front door to announce that Mrs. Kane was sick in bed with an awful fever and broke out terrible, and would the doctor please step over there.

"And all the clothes in the suds!" sighed Katy. "But that's nothing. Poor Miss Mercy! she's almost out of her mind; she says that she's to blame; she's brought smallpox on that innocent woman, and most like she'll die; and if she hadn't been so wicked and headstrong and had listened to her friend (she didn't name nobody, but I know she means young Gordon) and her sister, it wouldn't have happened; she hadn't even helped the woman who fetched the smallpox; she'd only tempted her to crime! And what should she say to poor Mrs. Bateman? Nobody wanted to rent her home to be a pest-house. And she'd set the house afire by hiring an ignorant man—Oh, she was a wicked girl! Her aunty often told her she was a fool, and oh, why hadn't she believed her and not tried to do things too big for her senseless head? And she's been fairly crying her eyes out. The poor, sweet, humble-minded little thing!"

Poor little Mercy! But I was to pity her much more during the succeeding ten minutes. Amos came out to the barberry hedge to tell our cook that Miss Mercy was in bed and he 'lowed she'd smallpox. He was off in pursuit of the doctor, who was at Mrs. Kane's who'd got a fearful bad case. Hardly was Amos out of sight than Nellie, in her cheap imitation of the latest fashion of big hat, dashed out of the gate after the street car. So do rats desert the sinking ship, I thought. Straightway I went over to the house. Katy herself answered the bell. She was in two minds about ejecting me by force, but she softened when I recalled to her how recently I had been vaccinated.

"Well, Miss Patsy, that's so," she admitted, "and besides, I ain't absolutely sure 'tis smallpox. But she'd a kinder chill and I wouldn't let her come down-stairs. Say, you don't happen to have seen Nellie anywhere?"

When I told her, she drew a long sigh. We were standing at the side door, where a great Norway fir shakes its blue-green shadows.

"'Tis like her," said Katy bitterly, "and only yesterday Miss Mercy gave her sech a pretty waist. And now she's run off and Miss Mercy's got the smallpox—mebbe. Well, I dunno as it's as dangerous as Alterruria, and mebbe one will cure the other—Oh, say! Look, Miss Patsy!"

I looked. They came in a kind of rush with the flutter of brilliant autumn leaves, swirling around the house corner—Nellie and young Ralph Gordon. Nellie's cheeks were blazing, but young Gordon looked white and stern.

"Why, Nellie Small, ain't you run away?" cried Katy.

Before Nellie could retort, the young gentleman took the limelight.

"Where is Miss Mercy?" he demanded in that tone of voice which the novelists call "tense;" "I must say a few words to her. You can let me say them through the door, if you wish, Mrs. Biff."

Katy hardly considered; her eyes shone into his masterful face. She turned on her heel and he followed her. Instantly Nellie's excitement found burning words: "I heard her, Miss McFarlin! She thinks I ran away! Me! Well, I know she has a mean opinion of me, but I didn't expect she'd be that unjust. I'm jest as fond of Miss Mercy as she is; I only sprinted down the street to ketch her young man, because I know they had a misunderstanding, and I was sure, no matter how mad he was, the minute I told him, he'd come a-running, and whether they let her see him or not, it would cheer her up a whole lot to know he tried. And as for Mrs. Biff's pitying Miss Mercy and finding fault with her, I can tell you she's made me believe things Mrs. Biff nor nobody else could if she offered me the kingdom of heaven and a chromo! I never believed before rich folks could be like her. I don't know what that Altrury of hers is, but if she believes in it I'm going to; and so is Phil, and he's going to make them stop the strike, too; and it's a whole lot because of what she's said and what I've said 'bout her. It is, for fair!"

Thereupon Nellie burst into tears, and disappeared behind the kitchen lattice.

Later, some hours later, I had a chance to tell Katy. But it was then no news to her. She shook her philosophic head. "'Lightning and grace,' Biff used to say, 'you can't noways bet on, for there's no manner of knowing where they'll strike.' Now that Nellie, she fairly bu'st into Miss Mercy's room, me being busy seeing Mr. Gordon safe outer the house; and I expected to find she'd riz Miss