one of approval. "What does ail you?"

"Nothing, nothing at all, Betsey," Bob assured her. "I'm my usual
charming self. Are Norma and Alice going to Washington first?"

"No. I wish they were," answered Betty, taking up the letter again.
"Bob, I'm afraid they're having a hard time with money matters. You know
Dr. Guerin is so easy-going he never collects one-third of the bills he
sends out, and any one can get his services free if they tell him a hard
luck story. Norma writes that she and Alice have always wanted to go to
Shadyside because their mother graduated from there when it was only a
day school. Mrs. Guerin's people lived around there somewhere. And last
year, you know, Norma went to an awfully ordinary school--good enough, I
suppose, but not very thorough. She couldn't prepare for college there."

"Well, couldn't we fix it some way for them?" asked Bob interestedly.
"I'd do anything in the world for Doctor Guerin. Didn't he row me that
time he found us out in the fields at two o'clock in the morning? You
think up some way to make him accept some money, Betty."

Doctor Hal Guerin and his wife and daughters had been good friends to Bob
and Betty in the Bramble Farm days. The doctor, with a large country
practice that brought him more affection and esteem than ready cash, had
managed to look after the boy and girl more or less effectively, and
Norma, his daughter, had supplied Bob with orders from her school friends
for little carved pendants that he made with no better tools than an old
knife. This money had been the first Bob had ever earned and had given
him his first taste of independence.

"I don't think you could make Doctor Guerin take money, even as a