Everybody talked at once, then, and she listened.

“Very well,” she said.  “I’ll amend it.  We’re not all hypocrites.  My motives in all this are perfectly clear—­and selfish.”

“You and old Pierce would make a fine team, Pat,” Mrs. Dick remarked with a yawn.  “I like hypocrites myself.  They’re so comfy.  But if you’re not above advice, Pat, you’ll have Aunt Honoria break her neck or something—­anything to get father back to town.  Something is going to explode, and Oskar doesn’t like to be agitated.”

She curled up on the cot with that and went sound asleep.  The rest of us had coffee and talked, but there wasn’t anything to do.  As Mr. Sam said, Mr. Pierce didn’t want to stay, anyhow, and as likely as not if we went to him in a body and told him he must come to the shelter-house for instructions, and be suave and gentle when he was called down by the guests about the steam-pipes making a racket, he’d probably prefer to go down to the village and take Doctor Barnes’ place washing dishes at the station.  That wouldn’t call for any particular mildness.

But he settled it by appearing himself.  He came across the snow from the direction of Mount Hope, and he had a pair of skees over his shoulder.  (At that time I didn’t even know the name of the things, but I learned enough about them later.) I must say he looked very well beside Mr. Dick, who wasn’t very large, anyhow, and who hadn’t had time to put on his collar, and Mr. Sam, who’s always thin and sallow and never takes a step he doesn’t have to.

I let him in, and when he saw us all there he started and hesitated.

“Come in, Pierce,” Mr. Sam said.  “We’ve just been talking about you.”

He came in, but he didn’t look very comfortable.

“What have you decided to do with me?” he asked.  “Put me under restraint?”

He was unbuttoning his sweater, and now he took out two of the smallest rabbits I ever saw and held them up by the ears.  Miss Patty gave a little cry and took them, cuddling them in her lap.

“They’re starving and almost frozen, poor little devils,” he said.  “I found them near where I shot the mother last night, Minnie, and by way of atonement I’m going to adopt them.”

Well, although the minute before they’d all been wishing they’d never seen him, they pretty nearly ate him up.  Miss Patty held the rabbits, so we all had turns at feeding them warm milk with a teaspoon and patting their pink noses.  When it came Mr. Pierce’s turn they were about full up, so he curled his big body on the floor at Miss Patty’s feet and talked to the rabbits and looked at her.  He had one of those faces that’s got every emotion marked on it as clear as a barometer—­when he was mad his face was mad all over, and when he was pleased he glowed to the tips of his ears.  And he was pleased that morning.

But, of course, he had to be set right about the sanatorium, and Mr. Sam began it.  Mr. Pierce listened, sitting on the floor and looking puzzled and more and more unhappy.  Finally he got up and drew a long breath.