only six months ago!"

"Yawning fiddlesticks!" snapped I, elegantly. "There
was nothing wrong with me except that I wanted to be
fussed over. And I have been. And I've loved it. But
it must stop now." I rose and walked over to the table
and faced Von Gerhard, sitting there in the depths of a
great chair. "You do not seem to realize that I am not
free to come and go, and work and play, and laugh and
live like other women. There is my living to make. And
there is--Peter Orme. Do you think that I could stay on
here like this? Oh, I know that Max is not a poor man.
But he is not a rich man, either. And there are the
children to be educated, and besides, Max married Norah
O'Hara, not the whole O'Hara tribe. I want to go to
work. I am not a free woman, but when I am working, I
forget, and am almost, happy. I tell you I must be well
again! I will be well! I am well!"

At the end of which dramatic period I spoiled the
whole effect by bowing my head on the table and giving
way to a fit of weeping such as I had not had since the
days of my illness.

"Looks like it," said Max, at which I decided to
laugh, and the situation was saved.

It was then that Von Gerhard proposed the thing that
set us staring at him in amused wonder. He came over and
stood looking down at us, his hands outspread upon the