cousin."

Katharine laughed lightly.

"It's nothing, after all. I have more time than most of you, and
it's only a little while, anyway."

It was only a little thing, as Katharine had said, but by it she
gained far more than the one short half-hour a week would ever
cost her; and, too, from that time onward, Alan looked on his
cousin with a new admiration which her beauty and her attempts to
win his liking could never have brought.

The girls entered into their work heartily, charmed by the novelty
of their experiment. It was an unknown sensation to them to feel
sure that some one was eagerly listening for their step in the
outer room, to see the dull, plain face before them brighten with
a new life, as they came through the door. For the first few
weeks, they begged to be allowed to prolong the half-hour; but the
doctor, mindful of the fate of "Pilgrim's Progress," and knowing
that a reaction would probably come, checked their zeal, and only
encouraged their shorter visits. How much good they did to their
young patient, they never knew. The healthy, out-of-door
atmosphere which they brought in, their scraps of news, and their
gay chatter did as much to brighten the rest of the long, lonely
days, as the one or two pictures they brought did towards
beautifying the plain, white walls of the little room where
Bridget was learning her lesson of patience. Still less did they
realize how much they themselves were gaining from the quiet half-
hour in the corner of the great hospital. The little self-