“May we come in?”

It was Jarvis Burnside, bringing his mother to see Sally.  Neither of them had yet set eyes upon her since her illness.  Sally had been at home for two days now, two intemperately hot days.  During this entire period she had lain on the couch, which was drawn as close to the window as it could be placed.  Uncle Timothy had remained at hand with fans and iced lemonade and every other expedient he could think of for mitigating the perfervid temperature of the flat.  Just now, at five o’clock in the afternoon, with no breeze whatever entering at the window, the small living-room was at its worst.

“Oh, I’m so glad to see you!” Sally held out a languid hand, but her face lighted up with pleasure.

While his mother bent over Sally, Jarvis pushed up his goggles, then pulled them off.  The room was shaded, but even so, the daylight made him blink painfully for a minute.  But by the time he got his chance at greeting the invalid, he was able to see clearly for himself just how Sally was looking.  He stared hard at her, noting with a contraction of the heart all the evidences of the fight for life she had been through.  There was no doubt about it, it was as Josephine had said:  she looked as if a breath might blow her away.

“I look like a little boy now, don’t I?” suggested Sally, smiling up at him as his hand closed over hers.  She put up her other hand to her head, where the heavy masses of fair hair had given way to a short, curly crop most childish in its clustering framing of her now delicate face.  “It’s a blow to my vanity, but it’s growing fast, and by the time I can hold my head up good and strong, like a six-months-old baby, it will be long enough to tie with a bow at my neck.”

“You can’t hold your head up yet?” questioned Jarvis anxiously.

“Oh, yes, I can,” declared Sally, cheerfully.  “I just don’t seem to want to—­not when there’s a convenient pillow to lay it on.  But I shall get strong pretty soon now.  When the weather changes—­why, even to-day, if I were lying down on the bank of a brook somewhere, or in the woods—­or almost anywhere out-doors—­I believe I’d feel quite a lot stiffer in my backbone.”

“And still you won’t come to us and let us make you comfortable?” Mrs. Burnside looked as if she would enjoy doing it.

But Sally looked over at Uncle Timothy, and her shake of the head was as decided as ever.  “Not while Uncle Timmy and the boys stay here.  Have you seen Max and Alec lately, Mrs. Burnside?  I don’t believe I’m a bit paler than they are, working in those hot offices in the artificial light.  I shall grow strong fast enough—­the nurse told me people always feel like this after typhoid.  And when I do get strong I shall be a Trojan—­just wait.”

“We don’t like to wait,” said Jarvis, still watching Sally, although his eyes were feeling the adverse influences of the white daylight which beat into the room underneath the shades.  He put up his hand for an instant to shield them, and Sally was quick to notice.