Madeleine's great, beautiful eyes were lifted towards the other girl's face with an expression mysterious in its longing. "Teach me the gift," she said; "I want to make more happiness, too." "We'll be her class," exclaimed Susan, "just you and me." "The first lesson is eating waffles," Jane announced solemnly. "And me, too," cried a voice in the kitchen window, and there was Lorenzo Rath back for his second call that day, and it not yet ten o'clock. "I've been to Mrs. Cowmull's and eaten breakfast, and I'm as hungry as a wolf." He came in through the window as he spoke. "Oh, a young man!" cried Susan. "I ain't seen a young man since the last time the pump broke. Oh, my! Ain't this jolly? Ain't this fun?" "You show Madeleine where to find plates and forks and knives, Auntie," said Jane. "Here, Mr. Rath, I'll break two more eggs and you can beat them. I haven't made enough batter, if there's a man to eat, too." "I feel as if I'd leave Mrs. Cowmull's to-morrow and come here to board," said Lorenzo. "Could I?" His tone was very earnest. "No, you couldn't," said Jane firmly. "Oh, let him," exclaimed Susan, from the pantry, where she was getting out plates. "It'll make Mrs. Cowmull so mad, and I ain't made any one mad for years and years. I'd so revel to be human again. And it would be so nice having a man about, too." "I couldn't think of it," said Jane, getting very crimson. Madeleine looked at the artist. "Then I shall leave Mrs. Cowmull's, anyway," said Lorenzo, decidedly; "I shall look up another place at once. Why, that woman would drive me mad. She says something ridiculous every time she opens her mouth. She asked me this morning if I'd ever climbed to the top of the Kreutzer Sonata." "What did you say?" Madeleine asked. "I told her no, but I'd been to the bottom of the Campanile and seen them getting out coal from the mine there." "Well, that showed you'd seen some sights, anyhow," said Susan, placidly. "The waffles are done!" Jane announced. They all drew up round the table. "This is living," the invalid exclaimed. "If my sister would only never come back!" "Maybe she won't!" suggested Lorenzo. "I wouldn't like her to die," said Susan, gravely. "I'm sensitive over feeling people better off dead. But if she'd marry, it would be nice." "For the man?" queried Lorenzo. "For us all," said Susan, gravely. "Just exactly the right thing is going to happen to her and everybody," said Jane, firmly--dividing the waffles as she spoke. "Are you so sure?" the artist asked, looking a little amused. Susan noticed the look. "She's a Sunshine Nurse," she explained quickly. "It's her religion to be like that. She can't help it. She's promised." CHAPTER V A CHANGE IN THE FEEL OF THINGS IT didn't take long for the town to wake up to the fact that some new element had entered into its composition. "I can't get over it, Susan Ralston's being up and about," Miss Debby Vane said distressedly to Mrs. Mead. "Why, she was 'most dead!"