know at all how to finish it. "Why, you're so plucky--and so odd--and
so interesting!" he began all over again. "Oh, of course, I'm an awful
duffer and all that! But if we'd had half a chance, I say, you and I
would have been great pals in another fortnight!"

"Even so," murmured little Eve Edgarton, "there are yet--fifty-two
hours before I go."

"What are fifty-two hours?" laughed Barton.

Listlessly like a wilting flower little Eve Edgarton slid down a
trifle farther into her pillows. "If you'd have an early supper," she
whispered, "and then come right up here afterward, why, there would be
two or three hours. And then to-morrow if you got up quite early,
there would be a long, long morning, and--we--could get
acquainted--some," she insisted.

"Why, Eve!" said Barton, "do you really mean that you would like to
be friends with me?"

"Yes--I do," nodded the crown of the white-bandaged head.

"But I'm so stupid," confided Barton, with astonishing humility. "All
these botany things--and geology--and--"

"Yes, I know it," mumbled little Eve Edgarton. "That's what makes you
so restful."

"What?" queried Barton a bit sharply. Then very absent-mindedly for a
moment he sat staring off into space through a gray, pungent haze of