“I came to ask you who you would rather have to nurse you,” she said, trying to keep the erratic color from crimsoning her cheeks. You see, she had never had a patient of her very own before, and there were certain embarrassing complications in having this particular young man in charge. Chip's eyes wandered wistfully to the window, where a warm, spring breeze flapped the curtains in and out. “How long have I got to lie here?” he asked, reluctantly. “A month, at the least--more likely six weeks,” she said with kind bluntness. It was best he should know the worst at once. Chip turned his face bitterly to the wall for a minute and traced an impossible vine to its breaking point where the paper had not been properly matched. Twenty miles away the boys were hurrying through their early dinner that they might catch up their horses for the afternoon's work. And they had two good feet to walk on, two sound arms to subdue restless horseflesh and he was not there! He could fairly smell the sweet, trampled sod as the horses circled endlessly inside the rope corral, and hear them snort when a noose swished close. He wondered who would get his string to ride, and what they would do with his bed. He didn't need it, now; he would lie on wire springs, instead of on the crisp, prairie grass. He would be waited on like a yearling baby and-- “The Countess just knows you will choose Bill,” interrupted a whimsical girl voice. Chip said something which the Little Doctor did not try to hear distinctly. “Don't she think I've had enough misery dealt me for once?” he asked, without taking his eyes from the poor, broken vine. He rather pitied the vine--it seemed to have been badly used by fate, just as he had been. He was sure it had not wanted to stop right there on that line, as it had been forced to do. HE had not wanted to stop, either. He--“She says Bill would just love to come,” said the voice, with a bit of a laugh in it. Chip, turning his head back suddenly, looked into the gray eyes and felt inexplicably cheered. He almost believed she understood something of what it all meant to him. And she mercifully refrained from spoken pity, which he felt he could not have borne just then. His lips took back some of their curve. “You tell her I wouldn't just love to have him,” he said, grimly. “I'd never dare. She dotes on Bill. Whom DO you want?” “When it comes to that, I don't want anybody. But if you could get Johnny Beckman to come--” “Oh, I will--I'll go myself, to make sure of him. Which one is Johnny?” “Johnny's the red-headed one,” said Chip. “But--they're ALL--” “Yes, but his head is several shades redder than any of the others,” interrupted he, quite cheerfully. The Little Doctor, observing the twinkle in his eyes, felt her spirits rise wonderfully. She could not bear that hurt, rebellious, lonely look which they had worn.