“He hasn’t known very often, and for that reason he never takes any care of himself. But something over a year ago he scared me silly; he had a touch of apoplexy. The doctors told me, but they wouldn’t tell him. He got well in almost no time, but since, I’ve been trying to make him take things easy. That was one reason why I insisted on coming out here with him this summer.” “He needs a complete rest,” said David. “Yes; and maybe he’ll get one when your father comes. By the way--when are they coming--your father and Lucille?” “See how association with you makes me forget things!” he jested. “I knew I had something to tell you. They will be here to-morrow. I had a letter this morning.” “Are you ready for them?” she asked. “They are to have that cottage over there under the pines, and they can take their meals here in the hotel.” It was a perfect summer night, with the stars burning like beacon-lights in the inverted bowl of the heavens, a crescent moon hanging low over the saw-tooth outline of Qojogo, and the elevated backgrounds sweeping in the blackest of shadow to the high horizons. “The sublime majesty of it!” said the young woman softly, commenting on the grandeurs. “And to think that Lucille won’t be able to see it when she comes! It’s heart-breaking, David!” “I think--I hope--the little sister doesn’t miss what she hasn’t had since she was four years old,” he returned, matching her low tone. “I know; though it seems as if she must. But you are making her miss some of the things she needn’t miss, David.” “I have been a poor plotter,” he confessed. “I’ll admit that in getting them out here I was confidently counting upon breaking it off for Oswald. But it seems that I have only made matters worse. The letter that I spoke of was from Herbert. He has taken a partner in his law business and is giving himself a vacation. He says Dad’s health is still poor and it is hardly right for him to travel with the care of Lucille; so he, Bert, is coming along. I suppose I shall be obliged to read the riot act to him again.” Miss Virginia was standing on the lowest porch step and she drew herself up in combative protest. “You will do nothing of the sort,” she declared, with a touch of her father’s peremptory manner. “If you do, I shall let Lord Cumberleigh and Freddy Wishart know what a perfectly gorgeous place this is in which to spend a summer vacation. Good-night; it’s late and I’m going in.” When David had descended the hill to his bunk car headquarters he found that Plegg had not yet come in. But Jean Marie François Regnier was there, dark-faced, and with the Gallic temper coruscating. “Thees devil of hard-rock men!” he sputtered. “They ’ave not so moch as the courage of a mice! They say to me, ‘You s’all timber thees bad place or shoot it down, or bygod we s’all strike.’ _Sacr-r-re!_” As once before, in a similar crisis, David Vallory sat on the edge of his bunk to take off his lace-boots.