“Miss Linton’s coming to us on Saturday,” observed Burns carelessly, strolling to the window with his hands in his pockets.

“Is she?  I didn’t suppose she’d be strong enough just yet.”  King tried to speak with equal carelessness, but the truth was that, with his life bound, as it was at present, within the confines of this room, the incidents of each day loomed large.

“She’s gaining remarkably fast.  For all her apparent delicacy of constitution when she came to us, I’m beginning to suspect that she’s the fortunate possessor of a good deal of vigour at the normal.  She says herself she was never ill before, and that’s why she didn’t give up sooner—­couldn’t believe there was anything the matter.  We can’t make her agree to stay with us a day longer than I say is a necessity for safety.”

“Where does she want to go?  Not back to that infernal book-agenting?” There was a frown between King’s well-marked brows.

“Yes, I imagine that’s what she intends.  She’s a very decided young person, and there’s not much use telling her what she must and must not do.  As for the book itself, it’s pretty clever, my wife and Miss Mathewson insist.  They say the youngsters of the neighbourhood are crazy over it.  Bob knows it by heart, and even the Little-Un studies the pictures half an hour at a time.  If children were her buyers she’d have no trouble.”

“Have a look at those, will you?”

King reached for a leather writing case on the table at his elbow, took out a pile of sheets, and began to hand them over one by one to Burns.

“What’s this?  Hullo!  Do you mean to say she did this?  Well, I like her impudence!”

“So do I,” laughed King, looking past Burns’s shoulder at a saucy sketch of the big Doctor himself evidently laying down the law about something, by every vigorous line of protest in his attitude and the thrust of his chin.  Underneath was written:  “Absolutely not!  Haven’t I said so a thousand times?”

“‘Wad some power—­’” murmured Burns.  “Well, she seems to have the ‘power.’  I am rather a thunderer, I suppose.  What’s this next?  My wife!  Jolly! that’s splendid.  Hasn’t she caught a graceful pose though?  Ellen’s to the life.  Selina Arden?  That’s good—­that’s very good.  There’s your conscientious nurse for you.  And this, of herself?  Ha!  She hasn’t flattered herself any.  She may have looked like that at one time, but not now—­hardly.”

“She’s looking pretty well again, is she?”

“Both pretty and well.  We don’t starve our patients on an exclusively liquid diet the way we used to, and they don’t come out of typhoid looking half so badly in consequence.  And she’s been rounding out every day for the last two weeks in fine shape.  She’s a great little girl, and as full of spirit as a gray squirrel.  I’m beginning to believe she’s a bit older than I would believe at first; that mind of hers is no schoolgirl’s; it’s pretty mature.  She says frankly she’s twenty-four, though she doesn’t look over nineteen.”