"'Course I will. Why, just _seeing_ you makes me want to cheer." She quickly swung her slender legs over the bedside. "Oh, now if dear Uncle Don were only safe home again it would be perfect. I've worried and worried about his getting hit by a bomb or being blown up by a submarine. I wish ..." "And, presto! your wish is granted," laughed Donald, as he ran into the room and caught his small niece up in an old-time bear hug. "Oh, oh, oh. It's better than a fairy tale. I'm so happy I could die, but instead I'm going to get well right off. I'm well _now_; where are my clothes?" The little bare feet sought for bedroom slippers, and the light curls bobbed energetically as she enunciated, "Now that I've got you two I mean to keep you forever and ever. If you, Uncle Don, would only mar ..." The man made haste to clap his hand over the offending mouth; but he was too late. Rose had heard, and, with glowing cheeks, replied quickly, "But you forget that Uncle Don adopted me as a little sister, long ago." She slipped her hand through his arm and pressed it close to her for a moment, before laughing gayly, "Run along, man. Milady is about to dress and this is no place for you." CHAPTER XXXI THE VALLEY OF INDECISION Early evening it was, several days later, evening of a sultry, stifling day, which had escaped the bounds of longitude and invaded even the North Shore. The open ocean, itself, seemed to have forgotten its habitual unrest and yielded to the general languor. From the Thayers' summer home--a glorified bungalow, broad of veranda and shingled silvery-olive, atop a long, terraced bank--it had the appearance of a limitless mirror, reflecting the unblemished blue infinity of the sky. Only the never-ceasing series of vague white lines which ever crept up the shelving beach, to vanish like half-formed dreams, showed that, although the mighty deep slept, its bosom rose and fell as it breathed. The sky was a hazy horizon blue, unblemished save for a few vaporous clouds far in the west; the sun, well toward the end of its journey, was hazy, too, a thing of mystery; in the far eastern distance the broad Atlantic softened to a hazy violet-gray which, in turn, blended, almost without a line of demarcation, into the still more distant heavens. Far out, above the waters, a solitary gull circled with slow, sweeping curves, and now and again planed to the surface of the sea and struck from it a faint white spark. On the screened-in veranda, the members of the family, which now included Rose, sat or reclined, in attitudes of indolence, the men in negligee shirts and white flannels, the women in light dresses. Rose--who had, the day before, officially declared herself "off" the case; but had stayed on, a guest, at the general solicitation--wore a white dimity faintly sprinkled with her favorite rosebuds.