force.  Bob wants you to think it over, and let him know as to the whats and whens by return mail.

You are so inspiring that I could write you all day, but those relics of what once was, but alas! will never be again, need to be rolled up afresh in absorbent cotton, and so I must nail my Red Cross on to my left arm, and get down to business.  If you saw how useful I am to your brother, you’d thank his lucky stars that I came through myself with nothing worse than getting my ear stepped on.  I was hugging the ladder (being canny and careful), and the man above me toed in.  Isn’t it curious to think that if he’d worn braces in early youth my ear would be all right now.

Behold me at your feet.

Respectfully yours,

Herbert Kendrick Mitchell.

When Mrs. Rosscott had finished the letter she looked across at her caller, and said: 

“You’ve read this, haven’t you?”

“No,” said he.  “I tried to unstick it two or three times coming on the train, but it was too much for me.”

“Don’t you really know what it says?” she asked more earnestly.

“Yes, I do,” Clover answered, “but Denham must never know that I do.”

“I won’t tell him,” she said smiling faintly.  “But surely he can’t be as badly off as this says.  Has he really lost all his hair?”

“Not all—­only in spots,” Clover reassured her; but then his recollections overcame him, and he added, with a grin:  “But he’s a fearful looking specimen, all right, though.”

“About my brother,” she went on, turning the letter thoughtfully in her fingers; “when can he get out, do they think?”

“Any time next week.”

“I’ll write him,” she said.  “I’ll write him and tell him that everything will be arranged for—­for—­for them both.”

Clover sprang to his feet.

“Oh, thank you,” he exclaimed.  “That’s most awfully good in you!”

“Not at all,” she answered.  “I’m very glad to be able to welcome them.  You must impress that upon them—­particularly—­particularly on my brother.”

Clover smiled.

“I will,” he said, rising to go.

“I’d ask you to stay longer,” she said, holding out her hand, “but I’m due at a charity entertainment to-night, and I have to go very early.”

“I know,” he said; “I’ve come up on purpose to go to it.”

“Then I shall see you there?” she asked him.

“It will be what I shall be looking forward to most of all,” he said.

“It’s been a great pleasure to meet you,” she said, holding out her hand, “you’re—­well, you’re ‘unlike,’ as they say in literary criticisms.”

“Thank you,” he replied; “but may I ask if you intend that as a compliment?”

“Dear me,” she laughed, “let me think how I did intend it.—­Yes, it was meant for a compliment.”

“Thank you,” he said, shaking her hand warmly, “it’s so nice to know, you know.  Good-by.”