"He has told me nothing." Laura smiled at him as she explained, "Jim is my boy now--we agreed on that, Sunday. When he leaves the hospital he is coming to me." "Jim, I congratulate you. You are a lucky boy," said the nurse, who knew all about Judge Haven and his daughter. "I think I too am to be congratulated," said Laura quickly, and the nurse nodded. "Yes, Jim is a good boy," she answered. Then she went away and left the two together. This time Jim did not talk very much. It was enough for him to have his pretty lady where he could look at her, and be sure it was not all a dream. Not many days later, after a telephone conference with the nurse, Laura went to the hospital again. She found the boy lying there with a look of patient endurance in his eyes, but they widened with half-incredulous joy when she told him that she had come to take him away. "Not--not _now_!" he cried out, with a little break in his voice. "Yes, now--just as you are. We are going to wrap you in a blanket and put you into a carriage, and before you have time to get tired we shall be home." "Home!" echoed Jim, his eyes shining. "What makes you look so sober?" Miss Laura asked him as they drove away. "You aren't sorry to leave the hospital?" "Sorry?" Jim gave a shaky little laugh, then suddenly was grave again. "Yes, I'm sorry, but it's for all the other fellows that nobody's coming for," he explained. "I wish I could have taken them all home with us," Laura answered quickly. "I'll tell you what we'll do, Jim. If you'll get well very fast, maybe you and I can give a little Christmas party in your ward, to those other boys who have to stay there." "Hang up stockin's an'--an' a tree an' all?" Jim questioned breathlessly. "Yes. Wouldn't you like that?" "_Gee!_" was Jim's rapturous comment. "You bet I'll get well fast--if I can," the afterthought in a lower tone. The room Laura had prepared for the boy had been a nursery, and had a frieze, representing in gay colours the old Mother Goose stories. Jim was put on a cot beside the open fire, where he lay very still, but it was not the dull hopeless stillness of the hospital. Now he was resting, and his eyes travelled happily along the wall as he picked out the old familiar characters. "Makes me feel like a little kid--seeing all those," he said, pointing at them. The thin white face and small figure under the bedclothes looked like a very "little kid" still, Laura thought. The gray eyes swept over the large sunny room and then back to Miss Laura's face, and suddenly Jim's lips trembled. "I--I--I think you're _bully_!" he broke out, and instantly turned his face to the wall and was still again. Laura slipped quietly out of the room. When she returned a few minutes later, she brought a supper tray.