"No."

"No? Why not?"

"Because--because"--she seemed to search her mind--"because your
night-gowns are too long."

"Oh, is that all? That's no reason. Think of something else."

Idella rubbed her face hard on the pillow. "You dress up cats."

She lifted her face, and looked with eyes of laughing malice into Annie's,
and Annie pushed her face against Idella's neck and cried, "You're a
rogue!"

The little one screamed with laughter and gurgled: "Oh, you tickle! You
tickle!"

They had a childish romp, prolonged through the details of Idella's washing
and dressing, and Annie tried to lose, in her frolic with the child, the
anxieties that had beset her waking; she succeeded in confusing them with
one another in one dull, indefinite pain.

She wondered when Mr. Peck would come for Idella, but they were still at
their belated breakfast when Mrs. Bolton came in to say that Bolton had met
the minister on his way up, and had asked him if Idella might not stay the
week out with them.

"I don' know but he done more'n he'd ought.

"But she can be with us the rest part, when you've got done with her."

"I haven't begun to get done with her," said Annie. "I'm glad Mr. Bolton
asked."

After breakfast Bolton himself appeared, to ask if Idella might go up to
the orchard with him. Idella ran out of the room and came back with her hat
on, and tugging to get into her shabby little sack. Annie helped her with
it, and Idella tucked her hand into Bolton's loose, hard fist, and gave it
a pull toward the door.