Adelaide was knitting on the porch, alone. She looked up and saw her brother, dirty, torn, wounded--lost in a glamor of recollection which she at first mistook for the daze after an accident. She threw her work aside, rushed down to him, and though he was nearly as tall as she, carried him bodily to the porch. “Why, Quincy!” she exclaimed, “what has happened?” The lad was still too far away for an answer. But Adelaide had seen the wound. In a flash, she had brought water and cotton. Tenderly so that it scarcely hurt, she drew off his stocking and cleaned his wound. There was considerable blood, much dirt, no depth. A sharp twig had torn a gash between the toes. Silently, she set to work, rinsing the cut and disinfecting it. While this was to be done, after all, there was no need in asking her brother questions. He was sitting quietly enough. At last, in her task, Quincy grew aware of her, kneeling at his feet, caring for him. He watched her silently, as she worked. The pain was there, but it was dull, now, and quite unobtrusive. What a strange sweet afternoon it was! And why, a pain with it? He looked down at his sister. And now, she glanced up at him. Their eyes met and held. With one hand upon the bandage, the other clasped about and bracing his bared leg, she paused. “Thank you, Adelaide.” The boy spoke with an accent of maturity that may come at any age, with a real emotion. “Don’t be silly, dear,” Adelaide replied. And then she added: “How did it happen, brother?” “I don’t know.” The girl smiled, actually as if she understood. “Perhaps you were running too fast, eh?” Quincy looked sharp. “Did you ever run in the woods?” he asked with ill-concealed excitement. “Yes, indeed,” she confessed. Quincy was silent. Adelaide drew a clean stocking over the bandaged foot, and then, a hand-knitted, crimson slipper. “See if that’s comfy, now,” she said. “Whose slipper is that?” “Mine. You don’t care ...?” She spoke with a strange respect. Quincy got up and walked. “It’s all right.” And then, facing Adelaide, he stopped. Once more, he was embarrassed. He wished he had been elsewhere. “Thank you, sister,” he said with effort. The girl looked at him lingeringly. It was a curious, beautiful look. It came through tears--at least, so it seemed to Quincy--like the sky through thin clouds. And this made him grope vaguely back within his soul for something he had forgotten.