“I don’t know what you mean, Anna,” she said, pitifully, like a puzzled child.

Anna sprang up from the divan and went over to her and kissed her and laughed.  “I mean nothing, dear,” she said.  “There is no more to worry about now than there has been all along.  People get on somehow.  We are in the world, and we have our right here, and if we knock over a few people to keep our footholds, I don’t know that we are to blame.  It is nothing, Amy.  I have felt wretched for a few days, and it has affected my spirits.  Don’t mind anything I have said.  We shall leave Banbridge before long, and, as you say, we shall get on better.”

Mrs. Carroll gave two or three little whimpers on her sister-in-law’s shoulder, then she smiled up at her.  “I guess it is because you don’t feel well that you are looking on the dark side of things so,” said she.  “You will feel better to go out and have a drive.”

“Perhaps I shall,” replied Anna.

“We shall go for a long drive.  There will be plenty of time, it is so early.  How lovely it would be if we had our automobile, wouldn’t it, Anna?  Then we could go any distance.  Wouldn’t it be lovely?”

“Very,” replied Anna.

Then Eddy burst into the room.  “Say, Amy,” he cried, “there’s a great circus out in the stable.  Papa and Martin are having a scrap.”

“Eddy, dear,” cried Mrs. Carroll, “you must not say scrap.”

“A shindy, then.  What difference does it make?  Martin he won’t harness, because he hasn’t been paid.  He just sits on a chair in the door and whittles a stick, and don’t say anything, and he won’t harness.”

“We have simply got to have an automobile,” said Mrs. Carroll.

“How do you know it is because he hasn’t been paid, Eddy?” asked Anna.

“Because he said so; before he wouldn’t say anything, and began whittling.  Papa stands there talking to him, but it don’t make any difference.”

“With an automobile it wouldn’t make any difference,” said Mrs. Carroll.  “An automobile doesn’t have to be harnessed.  I don’t see why Arthur doesn’t get one.”

Anna Carroll sat down on the nearest chair and laughed hysterically.

Mrs. Carroll stared at her.  “What are you laughing at, Anna?” said she, with a little tone of injury.  “I don’t see anything very funny.  It is a lovely day, and I wanted to go to drive, and it would do you good.  I don’t see why people act so because they are not paid.  I didn’t think it of Martin.”

“I’ll go out and see if he has stirred yet,” cried Eddy, and was off, with a countenance expressive of the keenest enjoyment of the situation.

Out in the stable, beside the great door through which was a view of the early autumn landscape—­a cluster of golden trailing elms, with one rosy maple on a green lawn intersected by the broad sweep of drive—­sat the man in a chair, and whittled with a face as imperturbable as fate.  Carroll stood beside him, talking in a low tone.  He was quite pale.  Suddenly, just as the boy arrived, the man spoke.