Before the day of departure Janice Day had a good deal to contend with. It _did_ seem too bad that one could not spend one's own money without everybody trying to talk one out of it! Not every one, however! Nelson Haley never said a word to discourage the girl's generosity. But, beginning with Hopewell Drugg himself, almost everybody else had something to say against it. "I can never in this world pay you back, Miss Janice," said the storekeeper, faintly, after the girl had told him her plans fully. "Who wants you to? I am giving it to Lottie," Janice declared. "Would you refuse to let her take it from me, when it means a new life to Lottie? You can't be so cruel!" "Had you _ought_ to do it, dear Janice?" asked Miss 'Rill, herself. "It seems too much for one person to do----" "You're going to pay your own expenses, aren't you?" demanded Janice. "Why should you do _that_? Just because you love Lottie, isn't it?" "Ye-es," admitted the other, but with a little blush. "Well, let _me_ show some love for her, too." "Good Land o' Goshen!" cried old Mrs. Scattergood. "Somebody ought to take and shake you, Janice Day! I don't see what your folks can be thinking of. All that money just thrown away--for like enough the man can't help the poor little thing at all. It is wicked!" "We sha'n't pay for the operation if it is not successful. That is the agreement Dr. Sharpless always makes," said Janice, firmly. "But, oh! I hope he _is_ successful, and that the money will do him a lot of good." "I declare for't! you are the strangest child!" muttered Mrs. Scattergood. "I thought you was one o' these new-fashioned gals when I first seen ye--all for excitement, and fashions, and things like that. I've been wonderfully mistaken in you, Janice Day." Oddly enough the old lady made small objection to her daughter's going to Boston with the child. "Anyhow," she grumbled to Janice, "she won't be runnin' into Hopewell's all the time if she ain't here." "There will be no need of _that_, mother, if little Lottie is away," Miss 'Rill said, gently. At home----Ah! that is where Janice had the greatest opposition to meet. "I declare to goodness!" snarled Marty Day. "If you ain't the very craziest girl there ever was, Janice! Givin' all that good money away! And goin' without that buzz-wagon you've been talking about so long!" "Well, I've only been _talking_ about it, Marty," laughed Janice. "I couldn't really believe it was coming true----" "And it ain't come true, it seems," snapped her cousin. "No-o. Not exactly. But I had the surprise of getting Daddy's check, and it was just _dear_ of him to send me such a lot of money." "What do you suppose Broxton will say, girl, when he learns how you've frittered that thousand dollars away?" demanded Uncle Jason, sternly. "He'll never say a word--in objection," she cried. "You can read right here in his letter how I am to use the money in just any way I please--and no questions asked!"