can have a minute to ourselves. Sit down and tell me what kept you."

She picked up her knitting as she spoke, having the kind of hands that find repose in ceaseless small activities. Her son could not remember a time when he had not seen those small hands in motion—shaping garments, darning rents, repairing furniture, exploring the inner economy of clocks. "I make a sort of rag-carpet of the odd minutes," she had once explained to a friend who wondered at her turning to her needlework in the moment's interval between other tasks.

Amherst threw himself wearily into a chair. "I was trying to find out something about Dillon's case," he said.

His mother turned a quick glance toward the door, rose to close it, and reseated herself.

"Well?"[p 26]

[p 26]

"I managed to have a talk with his nurse when she went off duty this evening."

"The nurse? I wonder you could get her to speak."

"Luckily she's not the regular incumbent, but a volunteer who happened to be here on a visit. As it was, I had some difficulty in making her talk—till I told her of Disbrow's letter."

Mrs. Amherst lifted her bright glance from the needles. "He's very bad, then?"

"Hopelessly maimed!"

She shivered and cast down her eyes. "Do you suppose she really knows?"

"She struck me as quite competent to judge."

"A volunteer, you say, here on a visit? What is her name?"

He raised his head with a vague look. "I never thought of asking her."

Mrs. Amherst laughed. "How like you! Did she say with whom she was staying?"

"I think she said in Oak Street—but she didn't mention any name."

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