"But that isn't all. Angie has taken a great fancy to both Helen and Dorothy Elizabeth, and she likes to have Gladys with them. The children are the same age--about five, you know--and great cronies. Angie is taking Helen as a sort of companion-governess. Her duties will be light and congenial. Both the children will be in her charge, and their treatment and advantages will be identical. There will be a nursery governess under her, and she herself will be much with Angie, which will be invaluable to her, in many ways. And, by the way, Frank, the fact that a woman like Angie Reynolds is taking her for a traveling companion shows, more conclusively than anything else could, how greatly improved Helen is--what a really charming woman she has come to be. But it is a splendid chance for her, certainly, and especially for Betty--her whole life centers now in Betty--and I urged her taking it. At first she demurred, on account of leaving me; but I succeeded in convincing her that it was altogether too good an opportunity to lose." "Opportunity, indeed! When does she go?" "The last of next month." "Oh, that's all right, then. I shall see Burke long before that." The doctor settled back in his chair with a relieved sigh. His sister eyed him with a disturbed frown. "Frank, dear, you can't do anything," she ventured at last. "Didn't I tell you she wasn't ready to go back?" "But she'll have to go--some time." "Perhaps. But wait. I'm not going to say another word now, nor let you. Wait till you see her--and you shall see her in a day or two--just as soon as you are strong enough. But not another word now." And to make sure that he obeyed, Mrs. Thayer rose laughingly and left the room. It was four days later that Frank Gleason for the first time ventured downstairs and out into the warm sunshine on the south veranda. Hearing a child's gleeful laugh and a woman's gently remonstrative voice,--a voice that he thought he recognized,--he walked the length of the veranda and rounded the corner. His slippered feet made no sound, so quite unheralded he came upon the woman and the little girl on the wide veranda steps. Neither one saw him, and he stopped short at the corner, his eyes alight with sudden admiration. Frank Gleason thought he had never seen a more lovely little girl. Blue-eyed, golden-haired, and rosy-cheeked, she was the typical child-beautiful of picture and romance. A-tiptoe on the topmost step she was reaching one dimpled hand for a gorgeous red geranium blooming in a pot decorating the balustrade. In the other hand, tightly clutched, was another gorgeous blossom, sadly crushed and broken. She was laughing gleefully. Near her, but not attempting to touch her, was a woman the doctor recognized at once. It was Helen--but Helen with a subtle difference of face, eyes, hair, dress, and manner that was at once illuminating but baffling. "Betty, dear," she was saying gently, "no, no! Mother said not to pick the flowers."