First, however, for my report. The little patient is still convalescing in a highly satisfactory manner, and with a rapidity which speaks volumes both for her own strong constitution and this mountain as a health resort. The wound remains perfectly healthy and is healing without suppuration or parting--which "speaks volumes" for your skill. I am quite certain that the scar will be merely a thin white line, and not in the least a disfigurement. The silk stitches are ready to be removed and the others nearly dissolved. Yesterday that funny, countrified doctor, from down in the village, came up to see her--fame of your operation having spread. He "reckoned" that the child's recovery was nothing less than a miracle, and that he takes his hat off to you. I told him that most physicians did. He also "allowed" that, if I wanted him to take out the stitches, he could do it, but I "reckoned" that I could attend to that a little better than he. Was that _lese majeste_? I did my best to be very humble, and said, "Yes, doctor" constantly, and he tried to appear very professional; but I think he stood a little in awe of me. You don't know how I enjoyed the feeling. But, to return to our report. Lou is gaining strength rapidly; I let her get up and play about longer each day, and have reduced the bandages to the minimum. It was most affecting when they were removed from her eyes. I forgot that I was a nurse, and cried with Smiles until the child cried, too, without having the slightest idea why. She is such a sweet, merry little imp that I do not wonder that you felt more than mere professional interest in her case. Every one here loves her. Indeed, I am enchanted with the place and people, and have made up my mind to stay on a week or ten days after I call myself off the case, and take a vacation which I really owe to myself. Poor Big Jerry is wonderful--so pathetically patient under his suffering, which is now acute. I am afraid that he cannot last many weeks longer, and, more than once, I have had to give him a hypodermic to deaden his pain. Somehow he reminds me of a huge forest tree that has been struck and shattered by a lightning bolt. Then there is Judd. Rose says that he has been very, very wicked; but that only adds to his fascination in my eyes, and if he should decide some day to snatch me up and carry me off bodily to a cave, I don't think that I should struggle or scream _very_ hard. However, I'm afraid there is no chance of that, as he apparently doesn't know that I exist. He puts me in mind of a mountain eagle, with those overhanging brows and piercing, coal-black eyes of his; but I must admit that he is disappointingly tame when he looks at Smiles--as he does most of the time, to my furious jealousy. Alas, the eagle then becomes a sucking dove. _She_ is apparently oblivious to the obvious fact that he is madly in love with her. Poor Judd!