“Thank you!  I’ll be good!  I can’t realize that you are coming to make my lonely home such a place of delight!”

She could not look up to meet the eyes that she knew were dwelling upon her.

“I want to take you over there to-morrow,” he went on.  “There are a few changes I propose making, and you may like to suggest some on your own account.  You can have it any way you please.”

She glanced up now, her cheeks still aflame, her face flooded with joy.

“I shall like to go,” she said; “but I think I’ll leave the changes to you.  The outside looks beautiful to me just as it is.  The wide lawn on the south side, with the background of evergreens, is magnificent!”

“I am glad you like that.  I never tire of it.  So you don’t want me to trim the trees up—­as some folks advise?”

“O-h!” she gasped.  “The effect would be ruined!”

He smiled.  “I might have done it to please you, but I think I’d have argued a little first.”

“I should have argued more than a little if you had suggested it,” she laughed.

“I am going to build out a big veranda from the dining-room, put in windows for the winter, and then give them over to screens through the summer.”

He paused to listen.  “Dr. Temple, I presume,” as a car whizzed up and stopped.  He went to the door, while Miss Sterling threw on her coat.

Mrs. Dudley joined them, and the four proceeded to the Home.

The superintendent opened the door to them, smiling a little when she saw Nelson Randolph.

“There is probably no real need of routing people from their beds at this hour,” she said; “but, of course, we wish to do all we can when any one is suffering.  The patient will be glad to see you,” she added, addressing the Doctor.

The physician was swift in his diagnosis.  “It is a case that calls for quick work,” he told Mrs. Dudley.  “There must be an operation at once.  You think your husband will be here on the 1.03 express?”

“I feel sure of it.”

“Then we will wait for him.”

“She can be taken over to the hospital now;—­we need not wait for that.”

Mrs. Dudley returned home to make the needful preparations, and Juanita Sterling went to encourage Miss Crilly for the coming ordeal.

The patient was tearful, but brave.

“Probably I never shall come back,” she said; “but you are awful good to try to save me, Miss Sterling!  I’d like to live long enough to show you how much I appreciate it.”

“Nonsense, that wasn’t anything!  And of course you’re coming back!  Dr. Temple says you have every chance in your favor if it’s done right away.  He thinks you are in splendid condition.  Now don’t you worry a single minute!”

“I’ll try not to!  I wish I were as brave as you.  I’d never have dared to go—­with her chasin’ me!  My!  I wish I could have seen you two leggin’ it!”