“How splendid of him!  He’s going to send Franz to play for me.  I can’t think of anything—­except beefsteak—­I should like so much!” and Anne laughed, her face all alight with interest.  But the next instant it sobered.  “Mrs. Burns,” she said, “there’s something I want to say very much, and so far the Doctor hasn’t let me.  But I’m quite strong enough now to begin to make plans, and one of them is this:  The minute I’m able to leave the hospital I want to go to some inexpensive place where I can stay without bothering anybody.  You have all been so wonderful to me I can never express my gratitude, but I’m beginning to feel—­oh, can’t you guess how anxious I am to be taking care of myself again?  And I want you to know that I have quite money enough to do it until I can go on with my work.”

Mrs. Burns looked at her.  In the excitement of talking the girl’s face looked rounder and of a better colour than it had yet shown, and her eyes were glowing, eyes of such beauty as are not often seen.  But for all that, she seemed like some lovely child who could no more take care of itself than could a newborn kitten.  Ellen laid one hand on hers.

“You are not to think about such things yet, dear,” she said.  “Do you imagine we have not grown very fond of you, and would let you go off into some place alone before you are fully yourself again?  Not a bit of it.  As soon as you can leave here you are coming to me as my guest.  And when you are playing tennis with Bob, on our lawn, you may begin to talk about plans for the future.”

Anne stared back at her, a strange expression on her face.  “Oh, no!” she breathed.

“Oh, yes!  You can’t think how I am looking forward to it.  Meanwhile—­you are not to tire yourself with talking.  I only stopped for a minute, and the Doctor is waiting by now.  Good-bye, my dear.”  And before Anne could protest she was gone, having learned, by experience, that the way to terminate useless argument with the one who is not strong enough to be allowed to argue is by making early escape.

That afternoon, having recovered from the two surprises of the morning, Anne asked for pencil and paper.  Miss Arden, supplying them, stipulated that their use should cover but five minutes.

“It is one of the last things we let patients do,” she said, “though it is the thing they all want to do first.  There is nothing so tiring as letter writing.”

“I’m not going to write a letter,” Anne replied, “just a hail to a fellow sufferer.  Only I’m no sufferer, and I’m afraid he is.”

She wrote her note, and it was presently handed to Jordan King.  He had wondered very much what sort of answer he should have, feeling that nothing could reveal the sort of person this girl was so surely as a letter, no matter how short.  He had been sure he recognized education in her speech, breeding in her manner, high intelligence as well as beauty in her face, but—­well, the letter would reveal.  And so it did, though it was written in a rather shaky hand, in pencil, on one of Miss Arden’s hospital record blanks—­of all things!