She found the invalid lying back in her chair, looking pale and wan, but when Nathalie inquired if she was suffering, she hastily answered, “Oh, no, I am just pure tired, for I have been trying to read my new war-book, and it has made me ache all over.” “Oh, Miss Whipple,” broke from the girl impulsively,—somehow she could not be selfish,—“wouldn’t you like to have me come and read to you for a little while each day?” “Oh, you dear child, that is most kind of you,” the lady’s eyes brightened. “Indeed, I should be delighted, but it would be selfish to keep you indoors on these beautiful mountain days.” A little sigh ended the sentence. “But you would not be keeping me in,” insisted her companion, “for I should just love to read to you, and I know I shall find plenty of time to walk somewhere every day.” And then, as an added plea to her request, she told of her mornings with Nita Van Vorst, and how their taking turns at reading to one another had been a source of great instruction to them both. In a short time Nathalie was happily reading to her friend, who listened with keen enjoyment. After a time, fearing the girl would tire, they stopped for a little chat, and it was during one of these chats that Nathalie told of meeting their queer neighbor who lived in the red house, and how rudely she had been repulsed by the old lady, when she had tried to atone for her reception of the day before. “A little old woman in a black bonnet, with a basket?” repeated Miss Whipple in a puzzled tone. “Why, that is strange, for I didn’t know that any one lived in that little red house. Some years past Mrs. Renwick allowed a poor old woman to live there rent free, but she died a few years ago. I shall have to ask Jakes about it, for he knows every man, woman, or child who lives on these mountains.” During one of these pauses Mona came in, and her sister, noting the wistful look in the patient brown eyes, surmised that she, too, would like to enjoy Nathalie’s youth and charm. And so, in a few moments, the girl was out in the sweet-pea garden, delighting Mona with her enthusiastic interest in the delicately tinted flowers that grew in tall, long lines on each side of the house. Here, too, she met Jakes, an old white-haired man, bent almost double with age. He made up for her companion’s enforced silence, by showing the many different varieties of these exquisite flowers, which, on their rough stems, with their tendril-bearing leaves, peeped coyly at her, in almost every tint of their varying colors. But the girl glanced up with quick surprise, when she heard the old man, in his quavering, broken voice, softly repeat: “Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight; With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white, And taper fingers catching at all things, To bind them all about with tiny rings.”