More opportunely than any man could have dared to hope, the White Linen Nurse appeared suddenly on the scene in her little blue serge wedding-suit, with her traveling-case in her hand. With a gasp of relief the Senior Surgeon took her case and his own and went on down the path to his car and his chauffeur, leaving the two women temporarily alone. When he returned to the piazza, the woman of the world and the girl not at all of the world were bidding each other a really affectionate good-by, and the woman’s face looked suddenly just a little bit old, but the girl’s cheeks were most inordinately blooming. In unmistakable friendliness his sister-in-law extended her hand to him. “Good-by, Lendicott, old man!” she said, “and good luck to you!” A little slyly out of her shrewd, gray eyes, she glanced up sidewise at him. “You’ve got the devil’s own temper, Lendicott dear,” she teased, “and two or three other vices probably, and if rumor speaks the truth, you’ve run amuck more than once in your life; but there’s one thing I will say for you, though it prove you a dear stupid: you never were overquick to suspect that any woman could possibly be in love with you.” “To what woman do you particularly refer?” mocked the Senior Surgeon, impatiently. Quite brazenly to her own heart, which never yet apparently had stirred the laces that enshrined it, his sister-in-law pointed with persistent banter. “Maybe I refer to myself,” she laughed, “and maybe to the only other lady present.” “Oh!” gasped the White Linen Nurse. “You do me much honor, Agnes,” bowed the Senior Surgeon. Quite resolutely he held his gaze from following the White Linen Nurse’s quickly averted face. A little oddly for an instant the older woman’s glance hung on his. “More honor perhaps than you think, Lendicott Faber,” she said, and kept right on smiling. “Eh?” jerked the Senior Surgeon. Restively he turned to the White Linen Nurse. Very flushingly on the steps the White Linen Nurse knelt arguing with the Little Crippled Girl. “Your father and I are going away,” she pleaded. “Won’t you please kiss us good-by?” “I’ve only got one kiss,” sulked the Little Crippled Girl. “Give it to your father!” pleaded the White Linen Nurse. Amazingly, all in a second, the ugliness vanished from the little face. Dartlingly, like a bird, the child swooped down and planted one large, round kiss on the astonished Senior Surgeon’s boot. “Beautiful Father!” she cried. “I kiss your feet.” Abruptly the Senior Surgeon plunged from the step and started down the walk. His cheek-bones were quite crimson. Two or three rods behind him the White Linen Nurse followed falteringly. Once she stopped to pick up a tiny stick or a stone, and once she dallied to straighten out a snarled spray of red and brown woodbine.