“I b’lieve you, I b’lieve you,” Mr. Bills said.  “I should mind you myself every time if you looked at me, but boys ain’t alike.  There’s Tom Walker, ringleader in every kind of mischief, the wust feller you ever see.  Ruby Ann had one tussle with him, and came off Number One.  He’d most likely raise Cain with a schoolmarm who couldn’t walk and went on crutches.”

“Oh-h!” Eloise said despairingly.  “I shall not have to do that!”

“Mebby not; mebby not.  Sprained ankles mostly does, though.  I had to when I sprained mine.  I used to hobble to the well and pump cold water on it; that’s tiptop for a sprain.  Well, I must go now and see Ruby Ann.  Good-day.  Keep a stiff upper lip, and you’ll pull through.  Widder Biggs is a fust rate nurse, and woman, too.  Little too much tongue, mebby.  Hung in the middle and plays both ways.  Knows everybody’s history and age from the Flood down.  She’ll get at yours from A to izzard.  Good-day!”

He was gone, and Eloise was alone with her pain and homesickness and discouragement.  Turn which way she would, there was not much brightness in her sky, except when she thought of Jack Harcourt, whose hand on her hair she could feel just as he had felt her wet hand on his neck hours after the spot was dried, ft seemed perfectly natural and proper that he should care for her, just as it did that the lady at the Crompton House should send her a hat.  It was lying on a chair near her with the slippers, and she took it up and examined it again very carefully, admiring the fineness of the leghorn, the beauty of the lilac wreath, and the texture of the ribbons.

“I shall never wear it,” she thought.  “It is too handsome for me; but I shall always keep it, and be glad for the thoughtfulness which prompted the lady to send it.”

Then she wondered if she would ever see the lady and thank her in person, or go to the Crompton House; and if her trunk would ever come from the station, so that she could divest herself of the detestable cotton gown and put on something more becoming, which would show him she was not quite so much a guy as she looked in Mrs. Biggs’s wardrobe.  The him was Jack, not Howard.  He was not in the running.  She cared as little for him as she imagined he cared for her.  And here she did him injustice.  She interested him greatly, though not in the way she interested Jack, whom he chaffed on their way home, telling him he ought to offer his services as nurse.

“I wonder you did not wipe her eyes as well as give her your handkerchief,” he said.  “I dare say you will never have it laundered, lest her tears should be washed out of it.”

“Never!” Jack replied, and, taking the handkerchief from his pocket and folding it carefully, he put it back again, saying, “No, sir; I shall keep it intact.  No laundryman’s hands will ever touch it.”