“Ye—­es,” rejoined Jewel rather doubtfully.  She was not sure of this logic.

“So now we’re perfectly square,” went on the doctor, “but don’t you fall ill again.”  He shook his head at her.  “I want us to remain friends.”

“We’d always be friends, wouldn’t we?” returned Jewel, smiling into his laughing eyes.

“When is our golf coming off, Miss Eloise?” he asked, looking across the table again.

“When the weather permits,” she responded graciously.

“I guess that’s going to be all right,” commented Mrs. Forbes mentally.  “She’s as pretty as a painting with that rose on, and her mother looks as contented as a cat with her paw on a mouse.  She don’t mean to play with that mouse, either.  She won’t run any risks.  She’ll take it right in.  You’re pretty near done for, my young feller, and your eyes look willing, I must say.”

The spring rain proved to be a protracted storm.  Mr. Evringham made his hours long in the city.  Eloise came up to Jewel’s room each morning and read the lesson with her, always reading on to herself after it was finished.  She made the child tell her of the circumstances of her recent illness and cure, and listened to Jewel’s affectionate comments on Dr. Ballard’s kindness with an inscrutable expression which did not satisfy the child.

“You love him, don’t you?” asked the little girl.

Eloise gave a slight smile.  “If everything that isn’t love is hate, I suppose I ought to,” she returned.

“Yes, indeed,” agreed Jewel; “and he has been so kind to you I don’t see how you can help it.”

The girl sighed.  “Don’t grow up, Jewel,” she said.  “It makes lots of trouble.”

On the second one of her visits to the child’s room she put her hand on the flaxen head.  “I’d like to fix your hair,” she said.  “Mrs. Forbes doesn’t part it nicely.”

“I do it myself,” returned Jewel; “but I’d be glad to have you.”

So Eloise washed the thick flaxen locks and dried them.  Then she parted and brushed the hair, and when it was finally tied, Jewel regarded the reflection of her smooth head with satisfaction.

“It looks just the way mother makes it,” she said.  “I’m going to write to mother and father to-night, and I’m going to tell them how kind you are to me.”

That evening, in Mr. Evringham’s library, Jewel wrote the letter.

Her grandfather, after making some extremely uncomplimentary comments upon the weather, had lowered his green-shaded electric light and established himself beneath it with his book.

He looked across at the child, who was situated as before at the table, her crossed feet, in their spring-heeled shoes, dangling beneath.

“May I smoke, Jewel?” he asked, as he took a cigar from the case.  He asked the question humorously, but the reply was serious.

“Oh yes, grandpa, of course; this is your room; but you know nobody likes tobacco naturally except a worm.”