Inside of a somewhat unpromising shell, Mr. Zeb Meader was a human being, and no mean judge of men and motives.  As his convalescence progressed, Austen Vane fell into the habit of dropping in from time to time to chat with him, and gradually was rewarded by many vivid character sketches of Mr. Meader’s neighbours in Mercer and its vicinity.  One afternoon, when Austen came into the ward, he found at Mr. Meader’s bedside a basket of fruit which looked too expensive and tempting to have come from any dealer’s in Ripton.

“A lady came with that,” Mr. Meader explained.  “I never was popular before I was run over by the cars.  She’s be’n here twice.  When she fetched it to-day, I kind of thought she was up to some, game, and I didn’t want to take it.”

“Up to some game?” repeated Austen.

“Well, I don’t know,” continued Mr. Meader, thoughtfully, “the woman here tells me she comes regular in the summer time to see sick folks, but from the way she made up to me I had an idea that she wanted something.  But I don’t know.  Thought I’d ask you.  You see, she’s railrud.”

“Railroad!”

“She’s Flint’s daughter.”

Austen laughed.

“I shouldn’t worry about that,” he said.  “If Mr. Flint sent his daughter with fruit to everybody his railroad injures, she wouldn’t have time to do anything else.  I doubt if Mr. Flint ever heard of your case.”

Mr. Meader considered this, and calculated there was something in it.

“She was a nice, common young lady, and cussed if she didn’t make me laugh, she has such a funny way of talkin’.  She wanted to know all about you.”

“What did she want to know?” Austen exclaimed, not unnaturally.

“Well, she wanted to know about the accident, and I told her how you druv up and screwed that thing around my leg and backed the train down.  She was a good deal took with that.”

“I think you are inclined to make too much of it,” said Austen.

Three days later, as he was about to enter the ward, Mr. Meader being now the only invalid there, he heard a sound which made him pause in the doorway.  The sound was feminine laughter of a musical quality that struck pleasantly on Austen’s ear.  Miss Victoria Flint was sated beside Mr. Meader’s bed, and qualified friendship had evidently been replaced by intimacy since Austen’s last visit, for Mr. Meader was laughing, too.

“And now I’m quite sure you have missed your vocation, Mr. Meader,” said Victoria.  “You would have made a fortune on the stage.”

“Me a play-actor!” exclaimed the invalid.  “How much wages do they git?”

“Untold sums,” she declared, “if they can talk like you.”

“He kind of thought that story funny—­same as you,” Mr. Meader ruminated, and glanced up.  “Drat me,” he remarked, “if he ain’t a-comin’ now!  I callated he’d run acrost you sometime.”

Victoria raised her eyes, sparkling with humour, and they met Austen’s.