Coletti's maid opened the door, to tell them that
the countess was still in the bath and to say
that she had suggested, if the girls were ready
first, a trip upstairs to see “Grandmother.”

Lucia nodded without comment and turned
away with Betty. She hesitated. “Mother thinks
I ought to go,” she said, “and I suppose she
must mean that I take you. Our special friends
know, Betty, that Grandmother Ferris is --
queer. She is not my grandmother at all, but
we call her that. She is the mother of Uncle's
wife and she went to pieces in an accident a few
years ago. The doctor says her mind may come
back and she's quite harmless. You might not
notice anything, but I thought I'd better tell
you for fear she says some of the queer things
she does say. She can't bear to go out of these
rooms of hers on the third floor, though we coax
her down to sleep in the hot summer days -- that
is, whoever is here does. Uncle won't insist on
her going to a sanitarium; and so she has a
nurse and a maid too and they take turns stay-
ing with her. I don't know what is going to
happen when Uncle marries again, and my
mother says that he is sure to. That's _one_
worry in this house, Betty.”

Betty nodded soberly. She rather dreaded
going, but if it was Lucia's duty, she surely

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