“I guess con-sumption would be—­a—­little better!” she decided, crawling to her feet.

But the poor little feet could scarcely carry her.  She struggled to the street, caught at the fences for a while, then dropped.

Somebody stumbled over her.  It was Cousin Sue—­Halcombe Dike’s Cousin Sue.

“Deary me!” she said; and being five feet seven, with strong Yankee arms of her own, she took Sharley up in them, and carried her to the house as if she had been a baby.

Sharley did not commit the atrocity of fainting, but found herself thoroughly chilled and weak.  Cousin Sue bustled about with brandy and blankets, and Sharley, watching her through her half-closed eyes, speculated a little.  Had she anybody’s wedding-cards laid up on a shelf?  She had the little black apron at any rate.  Poor Cousin Sue!  Should she be like that?  “Poor Cousin Charlotte!” people would say.

Cousin Sue had gone to see about supper when Sharley opened her eyes and sat strongly up.  A gentle-faced woman sat between her and the light, in a chair cushioned upon one side for a useless arm.  Halcombe had made that chair.  Mrs. Dike had been a busy, cheery woman, and Sharley had always felt sorry for her since the sudden day when paralysis crippled her good right hand; three years ago that was now; but she was not one of those people to whom it comes natural to say that one is sorry for them, and she was Halcombe’s mother, and so Sharley had never said it.  It struck her freshly now that this woman had seen much ill-fortune in her widowed years, and that she had kept a certain brave, contented look in her eyes through it all.

It struck her only as a passing thought, which might never have come back had not Mrs. Dike pushed her chair up beside her, and given her a long, quiet look straight in the eyes.

“It was late for you to be out in the storm, my dear, and alone.”

“I’d been out a good while.  I had been on—­the track,” said Sharley, with a slight shiver.  “I think I could not have been exactly well.  I would not go again.  I must go home now.  But oh”—­her voice sinking—­“I wish nobody had found me, I wish nobody had found me!  The snow would have covered me up, you see.”

She started up flushing hot and frightened.  What had she been saying to Halcombe’s mother?

But Halcombe’s mother put her healthy soft hand down on the girl’s shut fingers.  Women understand each other in flashes.

“My dear,” she said, without prelude or apology, “I have a thing to say to you.  God does not give us our troubles to think about; that’s all.  I have lived more years than you.  I know that He never gives us our troubles to think about.”

“I don’t know who’s going to think about them if we don’t!” said Sharley, half aggrieved.

“Supposing nobody thinks of them, where’s the harm done?  Mark my words, child:  He sends them to drive us out of ourselves,—­to drive us out.  He had much rather we would go of our own accord, but if we won’t go we must be sent, for go we must.  That’s just about what we’re put into this world for, and we’re not fit to go out of it till we have found this out.”