Curiously enough Edmonia made no further resistance. Perhaps she had already accomplished the object she had had in view. At any rate she bade the driver turn about, and upon her arrival at the camp she offered Arthur no further explanation than he might infer from her telling him: “I’ve brought back the kidnapped nurse. I couldn’t win her away from you even for a few hours. See that you reward her devotion with all possible good treatment.” “You are too funny for anything, Edmonia,” said Dorothy as she stepped from the carriage. “As if Cousin Arthur could treat me in any but the best of ways!” “Oh, I’m not so sure on that point. He’ll bear watching anyhow. He’s ‘essenteric’ as Dick said the other day in a brave but hopeless struggle with the word ‘eccentric.’ But I must go now or I shall be late for dinner, and I’m expecting some friends who care more than Dorothy does for my hospitality.” “Oh, please, Edmonia--” “Don’t mind me, child. I was only jesting. You are altogether good and sweet and _lovable_.” She looked at Arthur significantly as she emphasized that last word. The young man thereupon took Dorothy’s hands in his, looked her in the eyes, and said: “Edmonia is right, dear. You are altogether good and sweet and lovable. But you ought to have taken some rest and recreation.” “How could I, when I knew you needed me?” XXIV TO GIVE DOROTHY A CHANCE _I_t was nearly the Christmas time when Arthur finally broke up the fever camp. He decided that the outbreak was at an end and the need of a hospital service no longer pressing. The half dozen patients who remained at the camp were now so far advanced on the road to recovery that he felt it safe to remove them to the new quarters at the Silver Spring. He had sent Dorothy home a week before, saying: “Now, Dorothy, dear, we have conquered the enemy--you and I--and a glorious conquest it has been. We have had forty-seven cases of the disease, some of them very severe, and there have been only two deaths. Even they were scarcely attributable to the fever, as both the victims were old and decrepit, having little vitality with which to resist the malady. It is a record that ought to teach the doctors and planters of Virginia something as to the way in which to deal with such outbreaks. I shall prepare a little account of it for their benefit and publish it in a medical journal. But I never can tell you how greatly I thank you for your help.” “Please don’t talk in that way,” Dorothy hastily rejoined. “Other people may thank me for things whenever they please, but you never must.” “But why not, Dorothy?”