when you feel up to it.  Are you fond of music?  I have a notion you are.  Franz will come and play for you whenever you say.  But besides that I’d awfully like to have a note from you as soon as you are able to write.  I’ll answer it, you know—­and then you’ll answer that, perhaps—­and so the hours will go by.  I know this is a rather free-and-easy-sounding proposition from a perfect stranger, as I suppose you think me, but circumstances do alter cases, you know, and if our circumstances can’t alter our cases, then it’s no good being laid up!

Hearty congratulations on that raging appetite.  You see Doctor Burns is good enough to keep me informed as to how you come on.  You certainly seem to be coming on now.  Please keep it up.  I shouldn’t dare ask you to write to me if the Doctor hadn’t said you could—­if you wouldn’t do it enough to tire you.  So—­I’m hoping.

     Yours, under the same roof,

     JORDAN KING.

“Good morning!” said a beloved voice from the doorway.  Anne looked up eagerly from her letter.

“Oh, Mrs. Burns—­good morning!  And won’t you please stand quite still for a minute while I look at you?”

Ellen laughed.  To other people than Anne Linton she was always the embodiment of quiet charm in her freshness of attire and air of general daintiness.  In the pale gray and white of her summer clothing, with a spray of purple lilac tucked into her belt, she was a vision to rest the eye upon.  “You are looking ever so well yourself to-day,” Ellen said as she sat down close beside Anne, facing her.  “Another week and you will be showing us what you really look like.”

“The little pink cover-up does me as much good as anything,” declared Anne.  “I never thought I could wear pink with my carroty hair.  But Miss Arden says I can wear anything you say I can, and I believe her.”

“Your hair is bronze, not carroty, and that apricot shade of pink tones in with it beautifully.  What a glorious mass of white lilacs!  I never saw any so fine.”

“They’re wonderful.  I insisted on keeping them right here, I’m so fond of the fragrance.  They came from Mr. King,” said Anne frankly.  “And a note from him says he’s here in the hospital with an injured back.  I’m so sorry.  Please tell me how badly he is hurt.”

“He will have to be patient for some weeks longer, I believe, but there is no permanent injury.  Meanwhile, he is like any man confined, restless for want of occupation.  Still, he keeps his time pretty full.”  And Ellen proceeded to recount the story of Franz, and of how Jordan King was continuing here in the hospital to teach him to speak English, finding him the quickest and most grateful of pupils.