“You’re sick!” declared Miss Marilla with a kind of satisfaction, as if now she had got something she could really take hold of. “I’ve thought it all the evening. I first laid it to the wind in your face, for I knew you weren’t the drinking kind; and then I thought maybe you’d had to be up all night last night or something; lack of sleep makes eyes look that way; but I believe you’ve got the grippe, and I’m going to put you to bed and give you some homeopathic medicine. Come, tell me the truth. Aren’t you chilly?” With a half-sheepish smile the soldier admitted that he was, and a big involuntary shudder ran over his tall frame with the admission. “Well, it’s high time we got to work. There’s plenty of hot water; and you go up to the bathroom, and take a hot bath. I’ll put a hot-water bag in the bed, and get it good and warm; and I’ve got a long, warm flannel nightgown I guess you can get on. It was made for grandmother, and she was a big woman. Come, we’ll go right up-stairs. I can come down and shut up the house while you’re taking your bath.” The soldier protested, but Miss Marilla swept all before her. She locked the front door resolutely, and put the chain on. She turned out the parlor light, and shoved the young man before her to the stairs. “But I oughtn’t to,” he protested again with one foot on the first step. “I’m an utter stranger.” “Well, what’s that?” said Miss Marilla crisply. “‘I was a stranger, and ye took me in.’ When it comes to that, we’re all strangers. Come, hurry up; you ought to be in bed. You’ll feel like a new man when I get you tucked up.” “You’re awfully good,” he murmured, stumbling up the stairs, with a sick realization that he was giving way to the little imps of chills and thrills that were dancing over him, that he was all in, and in a few minutes more he would be a contemptible coward, letting a lone, old woman fuss over him this way. Miss Marilla turned up the light, and threw back the covers of the spare bed, sending a whiff of lavender through the room. The Franklin heater glowed cheerfully, and the place was warm as toast. There was something sweet and homelike in the old-fashioned room with its queer, ancient framed photographs of people long gone, and its plain but fine old mahogany. The soldier raised his bloodshot eyes, and looked about with a thankful wish that he felt well enough to appreciate it all. Miss Marilla had pulled open a drawer, and produced a long, fine flannel garment of nondescript fashion; and from a closet she drew forth a long pink bathrobe and a pair of felt slippers. “There! I guess you can get those on.”