“How lovely!” and Whyn clasped her thin white hands together.

“Lovely!  What do you mean?”

“Oh, it’s so romantic.”

“What’s that?”

“Just like you read about in stories.  Maybe your father and mother are a real prince and princess, or some other great persons, and you were stolen away from them when you were a baby by cruel people.  What a story that will make.  I shall write about it at once.”

“A story!” and Rod’s eyes opened wide in surprise.  “What are you going to write?”

“You see, I’m an authoress, or rather, I’m going to be one some day.  I lie in bed and think out such lovely stories.  But this is something real, not a bit like the others.  I am going to make so much money, that I shall be able to help mamma, and she won’t have to worry as she does.”

“What makes her worry?” Rod queried.

“She worries about me.  I can’t walk, and have to lie in bed all the time.  It costs so much for doctors’ bills, and though mamma never says a word to me, I can tell what’s troubling her.  Now, I have a secret, and I am going to tell it to you, if you promise that you won’t say a word to any one about it.”

“What is it?”

“You won’t tell?”

“Don’t know until I hear what it is.”

“Oh, well, I’ll have to keep it to myself, then,” and the girl gave a sigh of disappointment.  “I was hoping that you would promise, for it would be so nice to relieve my mind by telling some one.”

“Maybe I’ll promise afterwards,” Rod replied.

“That might do,” Whyn mused, as she lay very still and looked far off through the window.  “Yes, I guess that will do.  You see, I once heard the doctor in the city say that I must go to a specialist, and maybe he could cure me.”

“What’s a specialist?” Rod questioned.  “I never heard of it before.”

“It’s a doctor in some big city like New York, who knows so much.  He might be able to make me better, if I could only go to see him.”

“Why don’t you go, then?”

“I can’t,” and a slight shade passed over the girl’s sunny face.  “It takes a lot of money, and we are poor.  Mamma plays the organ in St. Barnabas Church on Sundays, and gives music lessons through the week.  But it takes so much to pay doctor bills.”

“Where’s your father?” Rod asked.

“He’s dead.  He died when I was a little baby.”

“Oh!” Rod was all sympathy now.  So this girl was an orphan, something like himself, with a mother but no father.

“I have one brother,” Whyn explained.  “He is older than I am.  He is at Ottawa now, working for the Government.  He helps us all he can, but he has been there such a short time that he can’t do much yet.  He will after awhile, though, for Douglas is so good.”

“Is that your brother’s name?”

“Yes.  I miss him so much, for we always played together, and he used to read to me, and wheel me about the house.”