bret turned with anxious, almost with superstitious query to sheila. he found her wan and tremulous and weirdly aged. he cried out: “sheila! what’s the matter? you’

re ill!”

she tried to smile away his fears: “i had a bad night. i’m all right.”

but she leaned on him, and when he led her back to bed she fell into her place like a broken tree. she was stricken with a chill and he bundled the covers about her,

spread the extra blankets over her, and held her in his arms, but the lips he kissed shivered and were gray.

he was in a panic and begged her to let him send for the doctor, but she reiterated through her chattering teeth that she was “all right.” when he offered to stay

home from the office she ridiculed his fears and insisted that all she needed was sleep.

he left her anxiously, and came home to luncheon earlier than usual. he did not find sheila on the steps to greet him. she was not in the hall. he asked little polly

where her mother was, and she said:

“mamma’s sick. she’s been crying all day.”

“no, i haven’t,” said sheila; “i’m all right.”

she was coming down the stairs; she was bravely dressed and smiling bravely, but she depended on the banister, and she almost toppled into bret’s arms.

he kissed her with terror, demanding: “what’s the matter, honey? please, please tell me what’s the matter.”

but she repeated her old refrain: “why, i’m all right, honey! i’m perfectly all right!”

but she was not. she was broken in spirit and her nerves were in shreds.

though she sat in her place at table, bret saw that she was only pretending to eat. dinner was the same story. and there was another bad night and a haggard morning.

bret sent for the doctor in spite of her. he found only a general constitutional depression, or, as bret put it, “nothing is wrong except everything.”

a week or two of the usual efforts with tonics brought no improvement. meanwhile the doctor had asked a good many questions. it struck him at last that sheila was

suffering from the increasingly common malady of too much nervous energy with no work to expend it on. she must get herself interested in something. perhaps a change

would be good, a long voyage. bret urged a trip abroad. he would leave the factory and go with her. sheila did not want to travel, and she reminded him of the vital

importance of his business duties. he admitted the truth of this and offered to let her go without him. she refused.

the doctor advised her to take up some active occupation. bret suggested water-colors, authorship, pottery, piano-playing, the harp, vocal lessons—sheila had an ear

for music and sang very well, for one who did not sing. sheila waved the suggestions aside one by one.

bret and the doctor hinted at charity work. it is necessary to confess that the idea did not fascinate sheila. she had the actor’s instinct and plenteous sympathy,

and had always been ready to give herself gratis to those benefit performances with which theatrical people are so generous, and whose charity should cover a multitude

of their sins. but charity as a job! sheila did not feel that going about among the sick and poverty stricken people would cheer her up especially.

the doctor as his last resort suggested a hobby of his own—he suggested that sheila take up the art of hammering brass. he had found that it worked wonders with some

of his patients.

sheila, not knowing that it was the doctor’s favorite vice and that his home was full of it, protested: “hammered brass! but where would i hide it when i finished

it? no, thank you!”

she said the same to every other proposal. you can lead a woman to an industry, but you cannot make her take it up. still bret agreed with the doctor that idleness was

sheila’s chief ailment. there was an abundance of things to do in the world, but sheila did not want to do them. they were not to her nature. forcing them on her was

like offering a banquet to a fish. sheila needed only to be put back in the water; then she would provide her own banquet.

bret gave up trying to find occupations for her. the summer did not retrieve her strength as he hoped. she tired of beaches and mountains and family visitations.

in bret’s baffled anxiety he thought perhaps it was himself she was so sick of; that love had decayed. but sheila kept refuting this theory by her tempests of

devotion.

he knew better than the doctor did, better than he would admit to himself, what was the matter with her. she wanted to go on the stage, and he could not bear the

thought of it. neither could he bear the thought of her melancholia.

if sheila had stormed, complained, demanded her freedom he could have put up a first-class battle. but he could not fight the poor, meek sweetheart whose only defense

was the terrible weapon of reticence, any more than he could fight the birch-tree that he had brought from its native soil.

the sheila tree made a hard struggle for existence, but it grew shabbier and sicker, while the bret tree, flourishing and growing, offered her every encouragement to

prosper where she was. but she could not prosper.

one evening when bret came home, nagged out with factory annoyances, he saw old gottlieb patting the trunk of the sheila tree and shaking his head over it. bret went

to him and asked if there were any hope.

there were tears in gottlieb’s eyes. he scraped them off with his wrist-bone and sighed:

“die arme sch?ne birke. ain’t i told you she don’t like? she goink die. she goink die.”

“take her back to the sunlight, then,” said bret.

but gottlieb shook his head. “jetzt ist’s all zu sp?t. she goink die.”

bret hurried on to the house, carrying a load of guilt. sheila was lying on a chair on the piazza. she did not rise and run to him. just to lift her hand to his seemed

to be all that she could achieve. when he dropped to his knee and embraced her she seemed uncannily frail.

the servant announcing dinner found him there.

bret said to sheila, “shall i carry you in?”

she declined the ride and the dinner.

bret urged, “but you didn’t eat anything for lunch.”

“didn’t i? well, no matter.”

he stared at her, and gottlieb’s words came back to him. the two sheilas would perish together. he had taken them both from the soil where they had first taken root.

neither of them could adapt herself to the new soil. it was too late to restore the birch to its old home. was it too late to save sheila?

he would not trust the blithevale fogies longer. she should have the best physician on earth. if he were in new york, well and good; if he lived in europe, they would

hunt him down. craftily he said to sheila:

“how would you like to take a little jaunt to new york?”

“no, thanks.”

“with me. i’ve got to go.”

“i’m sorry i can’t; but it will be a change for you.”

“i’ll be lonely without you.”

“not in new york,” she laughed.

“in heaven,” he said, and the extravagance pleased her. he took courage from her smile and pleaded: “come along. you can buy a raft of new clothes.”

she shook her head even at that!

“you could see a lot of new plays.”

this seemed to waken the first hint of appetite. she whispered, “all right; i’ll go.”