When they were nearly ready to leave, Miss Merriman said, with a half real, half assumed show of firmness, "Now, Doctor MacDonald, since I am off duty I can speak my mind plainly, and I mean to. I know that you are Smiles' guardian; but you can't have her. She's mine, and she's going to live with my family until she enters the hospital. So there." Donald breathed a mental sigh of relief, and responded, laughingly, "And I, apparently, haven't anything to say about it! Oh, very well. I've lived long enough to learn that there is no use arguing with a woman, so I yield gracefully, although I'm afraid that it is establishing a bad precedent. If I begin to take orders from you like this, it is going to be hard to put you back in your place and to act the role of stern superior myself. I warn you, though, that I mean to get even with you on our next case, so prepare yourself to be bullied frightfully. "You see what a horrible disposition I really have, little sister," he added, smiling at Rose, who informed him that she was not in the least frightened, and to prove it, slipped her hand into his for a moment with the childlike confidence that he loved. So it was arranged; a taxicab bore them to the homey little apartment in the Fenway, where Smiles was taken to Mrs. Merriman's maternal bosom, and, after humbly begging his ward from them for the next afternoon, when he meant to introduce her to his family, Donald departed, whistling. Tired, but strangely contented, Rose was at last shown to her dainty pink and white bedroom, with its inviting brass bed, beside which she knelt for a long time in thankful prayer. Nor was it strange, perhaps, that her pillow was moist with tears of gratitude and happiness before she fell asleep. Smiles awoke early. The air in the room was very cold, but during her trip northward she had learned the mysteries of steam radiators, and she sprang up, closed the windows, and turned on the heat with a little silent laugh as her thoughts travelled back to the rude cabin on the mountain. In memory she saw herself crawl shiveringly from her bed, in the cold gray of a Winter daybreak, clad only in a plain nightgown, to build a blaze in the big stone fireplace so that the room might be warm for Big Jerry when he awoke. The smile faded from her lips, and they trembled slightly as she whispered his name. Poor grandpap, he had suffered sadly from the cold during those last few months when he could not keep the circulation up in his massive body by accustomed exercise.