"Yes " she pressed: " wonder what?"

"Well, if I shall have much of it."

Mrs. Stringham stared. " Much of what? Not
of pain?"

"Of everything. Of everything I have."

Anxiously again, tenderly, our friend cast about.
"You?? have everything; so that when you say.
much of it"

"I only mean," the girl broke in, " shall I have
it for long? That is if I have got it."

She had at present the effect, a little, of confound
ing, or at least of perplexing her comrade, who was
touched, who was always touched, by something
helpless in her grace and abrupt in her turns, and
yet actually half made out in her a sort of mocking
light. " If you ve got an ailment?"

"If I ve got everything," Milly laughed.

"Ah, that like almost nobody else."

"Then for how long?"

Mrs. Stringham's eyes entreated her; she had
gone close to her, half enclosed her with urgent
arms. " Do you want to see some one? " And
then as the girl only met it with a slow headshake,
though looking perhaps a shade more conscious:
"We ll go straight to the best near doctor." This
too, however, produced but a gaze of qualified as
sent and a silence, sweet and vague, that left every
thing open. Our friend decidedly lost herself.
"Tell me, for God's sake, if you re in distress."

"I don't think I ve really everything Milly said

[[146]]

p145 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p146w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p147

v?