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 'Ready for mother?' she inquired brightly from the threshold as she entered Sheilah's room.

Sheilah closed her teeth together tightly, and said nothing.

Mrs. Miller ignored the silence and approached the bed leaving the door into the hall open to light her way.

'Shall we have our prayers now, dear?' she inquired in the tone she always used when referring to anything religious. Mrs. Miller had clung to the childhood custom of hearing Sheilah say her prayers occasionally, just as some mothers cling too long to symbols of dependent babyhood with their last-born.

Sheilah murmured, 'Not to-night. And please don't ask me again.'

'Why, Sheilah, dear! How wrought up my little daughter is!' And she sat down on the edge of Sheilah's bed. Mrs. Miller was not a slender woman. The bed creaked.

Sheilah said, 'Please sit in a chair.'

'Why, Sheilah!' again exclaimed her mother, and began stroking Sheilah's forehead.

Her hands smelled faintly of dried sweet-grass. They always smelled that like. A sickish smell, Sheilah thought. She closed her eyes, and lay straight and rigid beneath the bedclothes, bound tightly across her by her mother's body, wait-