"I haven't the least idea," replied Lyddy. "Sulphur spring, perhaps--nasty stuff to drink. But listen here to what Aunt Jane says about father." "He's better?" cried 'Phemie. The older girl's tone was troubled. "I can't make out that he is," she said, slowly, and then she began to read Aunt Jane's disjointed account of her visit the day before to the hospital: * * * * * "I never _do_ like to go to such places, girls; they smell so of ether, and arniky, and collodion, and a whole lot of other unpleasant things. I wonder what makes drugs so nasty to smell of? "But, anyhow, I seen your father. John Bray is a sick man. Maybe he don't know it himself, but the doctors know it, and you girls ought to know it. I'm plain-spoken, and there isn't any use in making you believe he is on the road to recovery when he's going just the other way. "This head-doctor here, says he has no chance at all in the city. Of course, for me, if I was sick with anything, from housemaid's knee to spinal mengetus, going into the country would be my complete finish! But the doctors say it's different with your father. "And just as soon as John Bray can ride in a railroad car, I am going to see that he joins you at Hillcrest." "Bully!" cried 'Phemie, the optimistic. "Oh, Lyddy! he's bound to get well up here." For this chanced to be a very beautiful spring day and the girls were more than ever enamored of the situation. "I am not so sure," said Lyddy, slowly. "Don't be a grump!" commanded her sister. "He's just _got_ to get well up here." But Lyddy wondered afterward if 'Phemie believed what she said herself! They finished cleaning thoroughly the two rooms they were at present occupying and began on the chambers above. Dust and the hateful spiderwebs certainly had collected in the years the house had been unoccupied; but the Bray girls were not afraid of hard work. Indeed, they enjoyed it. Toward evening Lucas and his sister appeared, and the former set to work to repair the old pump on the porch, while Sairy sat down to "visit" with the girls of Hillcrest Farm. "It's goin' to be nice havin' you here, I declare," said Miss Pritchett, who had arranged two curls on either side of her forehead, which shook in a very kittenish manner when she laughed and bridled. "I guess, as maw says, I'm too much with old folks. Fust I know they'll be puttin' me away in the Home for Indignant Old Maids over there to Adams--though why 'indignant' I can't for the life of me guess, 'nless it's because they're indignant over the men's passin' of 'em by!" and Miss Pritchett giggled and shook her curls, to 'Phemie's vast amusement. Indeed, the younger Bray girl confessed to her sister, after the visitors had gone, that Sairy was more fun than Lucas. "But I'm afraid she's far on the way to the Home for Indigent Spinsters, and doesn't know it," chuckled 'Phemie. "What a freak she is!"