"This here is Saturday," said Old Captain, at breakfast time. "Our cupboard is pretty bare of bacon, potatoes, and things like that. I'll go up town after the fodder. Then this afternoon, me and you'll go to see Mollie. Most ginerally I takes her somethin'--fruit like, or a bouquet--old Mrs. Schmidt gives me a grand bunch for a quarter. It's quite a walk to that there hospital, so don't you go a-tirin' of yourself out doin' too much work; but I sure did enjoy my room last night--all clean an' ship-shape." "Wait till _tonight_!" said Jeanne. "You'll have _sheets_!" "Will I?" returned Old Captain, a bit doubtfully. "Well, I _may_ get used to 'em. They does dress up a bed." In spite of the squealing kittens, in spite of the many small tasks that Jeanne found to do, many times that morning her eyes filled with tears. Poor daddy and Michael--to go like that. Curiously enough, the remembrance of a drowned sailor, whose body had once been washed up on the beach near the dock, brought Jeanne a certain sense of comfort. The sailor had looked as if he hadn't _cared_. He was dead and he didn't _mind_. He had looked peaceful--almost happy; as if his body was just an old one that he had been rather glad to throw away. "His soul," Léon Duval had said, when he found his small daughter in the little crowd of bystanders on the beach, "isn't there. That is only his body. The man himself is elsewhere." "_Father_ doesn't care," said Jeanne, and tried to be happy in that comforting thought. That afternoon, they visited Mollie. "This bein' a special occasion," said Old Captain, "I got _both_ fruit and flowers. You kin carry the bouquet." It took courage to carry it, but Jeanne rose nobly to the occasion. She couldn't help giggling, however, when she tried to picture Mrs. Huntington, suddenly presented with a similar offering. There was a tiger lily in the center, surrounded by pink sweet-peas. Outside of this, successive rings of orange marigolds, purple asters, scarlet geraniums and candytuft, with a final fringe of blue cornflowers. "If I meet that fat boy," thought Jeanne, wickedly, "I'll bow to him." "Once I took a all-white one," confessed Captain Blossom, with a pleased glance at the bouquet, "but the nurse, she said 'Bring colored flowers--they're more cheerful.' 'Make it cheerful,' says I, to Mrs. S. Now that there _is_ cheerful, ain't it?" "Yes," agreed Jeanne, "it _is_. Even at Aunt Agatha's biggest dinner party there wasn't a _more_ cheerful one than this. I'm sure Mollie will like it." But _was_ that Mollie--that absolutely neat white creature in the neat white bed? There was the pale red hair neatly braided in a shining halo above the serene forehead. The mild blue eyes looked lazily at the bouquet, then at Jeanne. The old, good-natured smile curved her lips. "Hello, Jeanne," she said, "you're lookin' fine. You see, I'm sick abed, but I'm real comfortable--real comfortable and happy." Then she fell asleep.