Peace smiled. There was something rare about Peace Maythorne's smile. "Poor Mrs. Littlejohn! You see, she isn't used to being sick, and I am; that makes the difference." "Oh, I forgot!" said Gypsy, abruptly, "mother said I was to ask if those powders she left you put you to sleep." "Nicely. They're better than anything the doctor gave me; everything your mother does seems to be the best sort, somehow. She can't touch your hand, or smooth your pillow, without doing it differently from other people." "That's so!" said Gypsy, emphatically. "There isn't anybody else like her. Do you lie awake very often?" Peace answered in the two quiet words that were on her lips so often, in the quiet voice that never complained,-- "Oh, yes." There was a little silence. Gypsy was watching Peace. Peace had her eyes turned away from her visitor, but she was conscious of every quick, nervous breath Gypsy drew, and every impatient little flutter of her hands. The two girls were studying each other. Gypsy's investigations, whatever they were, seemed to be very pleasant, for she started at last with a bit of a sigh, and announced the result of them in the characteristic words,-- "I like you!" To her surprise, Peace just turned up her eyes and turned them away, and the eyes were full of tears. After a moment,-- "Thank you. I don't see many people so young--except the children. I tell them stories sometimes." "But you won't like me," said Gypsy. "I rather think I shall." "No you won't," said Gypsy, shaking her head decidedly; "not a bit. I know you won't. I'm silly,--well, I'll tell you what I am by-and-by. First, I want to hear all about you,--everything, I mean," she added, with a quick delicacy, of which, for "blundering Gypsy," she had a great deal,--"everything that you care to tell me." "Why, I've nothing to tell," said Peace, smiling, "cooped up here all the time; it's all the same." "That's just what I want to hear about. About the being cooped up. I don't see _how you bear it_!" said Gypsy, impetuously. Peace smiled again. Gypsy had a fancy that the smile had stolen one of the sunbeams that lay in such golden, flickering waves, upon the bed. Too much self-depreciation is often a sign of the extremest vanity. Peace had nothing of this. Seeing that Gypsy was in earnest in her wish to hear her story, she quietly began it without further parley. It was very simple, and quickly told.