on a tombstone waving a willow branch in one hand and wiping tears away with the other.  And, besides, I have been in love.  Summer love.  And it has been exciting.  No one could expect me to go through life and not have but one experience in love making and hearing, and because a girl enjoys the different manners of expression it doesn’t mean she is not particular about the story not being illustrated.  I don’t illustrate or allow illustrations, which, of course, lessens some of the thrill, but I promised Jess I would always draw the line at the right time, and I have.  I have not been engaged for half a minute, and I wouldn’t have added the postscript if it hadn’t been for her letter and what she told me about that girl from some Western town who is no more his sort than I am her brother’s.  Billy is perfectly blind about some things, and has no discrimination where it is most needed.  Anyhow, I added the postscript: 

P.S.—­By the time you get this I may be engaged.  Thank you for what you would say if here.

K.  C.

CHAPTER XXII

It was after I sent the letter that I got so restless I couldn’t sit still, and as there was nothing I enjoyed doing I spent a good deal of my tune at the hospital with Miss Polk, who is a very splendid person, and every day I went in to see Mrs. Stafford.  She is having the grandest rest, with rubs and good eats and nothing to do but be waited on and cared for, that a tired person ever had, and I am the only one who is allowed to see her, which is beyond the understanding of Twickenham Town.  I’m cheerful is the reason I’m allowed to see her, the town is told, and that’s enough for it to know.

It certainly is queer how some things happen in the nick of time.  Father sent me the money, but told me to try to be as practical as possible, knowing I am given to doing impractical things; and I took it to Miss Polk, and nobody but she and I know where it came from.  And then she invited Mrs. Stafford to be a guest of the hospital for a month.  I happened to be at the house when the note came.  I thought it best to be there accidentally, in case there should be argument and talk, and the Man of the House should still think Woman’s Place was in the Home, and sure enough there was.  Mrs. Stafford read the note, and her face got as white as death, and after a minute she said it would be heaven to go, but of course she couldn’t.  And the noble creature who is her husband said it was very presumptuous in whoever had invited her to be the guest of the hospital, and that he wasn’t in the habit of having his wife visit such places on the invitation of unknown interferers, and of course she couldn’t go.  And just as he said that Mrs. Stafford keeled over in a dead faint right at his feet, as if something had given out at the thought of rest.  I knew that was my chance, and I took it.