"She takes good care of me," said Medfield, with a little gesture toward the competent fingers. "I don't doubt it, sir.... I might almost say I wouldn't mind being ill--myself!" A kind of shyness in the words redeemed them and the girl smiled. "People who are not ill, generally think they wouldn't mind," she said quietly. She lifted the tray and set it aside. "I'll take out your pillows now. It's time for you to rest." She removed the pillows and shook them a little and placed the fresh one beneath his head and straightened the clothes for him, with her firm, competent, comfortable hands. The boy's eyes followed the white figure as it left the room, carrying the tray lightly. They came back to his father's face. "I think I've had my orders," he said laughingly. "I'm to go now, I understand. I'll be back by and by, sir--when you are 'rested.'" He hesitated a minute. Then he bent down and kissed his father, almost shyly, and left the room. The door closed behind him and Herman Medfield fell asleep and dreamed--"as if he really cared," thought Herman Medfield, as he drifted away into sleep. XXIII In Room 5, Mrs. Pelton was sitting in a big rocking-chair by the window, her feet on a hassock and her eyes fixed on the great bowl of blue forget-me-nots on the table beside her. She had been looking at the forget-me-nots ever since Aunt Jane appeared with the big box, just before dinner.... She could hardly eat her dinner for looking at them. She had had the bowl of flowers set on her tray--where they crowded the soup and vegetables, and made her happy.... She wished John could see them, and the children could see them--or that there was somebody she could divide with. The beauty of the forget-me-nots was too much for her. It was such a great bunch--it filled the bowl and overflowed the sides. She had never seen so many forget-me-nots in one bunch!... Now and then, sitting in the big chair, she reached out a hand to them and touched the flowers delicately. She wished she were bigger--the happiness of the flowers crowded on her. Perhaps if she were bigger, she could enjoy them more. Aunt Jane had not seemed overcome by the flowers when she brought them in. She had taken them from the box and shaken them apart with brisk fingers and arranged them in the bowl and moved the stand over by the window close to Mrs. Pelton's chair. "There!" she had said. "Makes you quite a nice bunch, don't it!" She stood off and admired them.... Mrs. Pelton was thinking now of Aunt Jane, and she was thinking that she did not even know who had sent them--"A man by the name of Herman," Aunt Jane had said. Mrs. Pelton had gone over in her mind all the people she had ever known--but there were no Hermans that she knew, or that John knew. It seemed very strange for any one to send a great bunch of flowers to her--any one she didn't know!