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me, and rested the tray on the sill of the blindless window that lighted the naked stairway.
“Nellie! Nellie Birdseye! Can it be?”
His voice was quite uncertain. He seemed deeply shaken, and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead. “But, Nellie, you have grown up! I would not know you. What good fortune for Myra! She will hardly believe it when I tell her. She is ill, my poor Myra. Oh, very ill! But we must not speak of that, nor seem to know it. What it will mean to her to see you again! Her friends always were so much to her, you remember? Will you stop and see us as you come up? Her room is thirty-two; rap gently, and I’ll be waiting for you. Now I must take her dinner. Oh, I hope for her sake you are staying some time. She has no one here.”
He took up the tray and went softly along the uncarpeted hall. I felt little zest for the canned vegetables and hard meat the waitress put before me. I had known that the Henshawes had come
