Blind as he might be, Dr. Armstrong was not blind to the geniality of Miss Durant’s greeting the next morning, or the warmth of her thanks for the cheap-looking dime novel. She chatted pleasantly with him some moments before beginning on the new tale; and even when she at last opened the book, there was a subtle difference in the way she did it that made it include instead of exclude him from a share in the reading. And this was equally true of the succeeding days. The new doings of Old Sleuth did not achieve the success that the previous ones had. The invalid suddenly developed both restlessness and inattention, with such a tendency to frequent interruptions as to make reading well-nigh impossible. “Really, Swot,” Constance was driven to threaten one morning, when he had broken in on the narrative for the seventh time with questions which proved that he was giving no heed to the book, “unless you lie quieter, and don’t interrupt so often, I shall not go on reading.” “Dat goes,” acceded the little fellow; yet before she had so much as finished a page he asked, “Say, did youse ever play craps?” “No,” she answered, with a touch of severity. “It’s a jim dandy goime, Ise tells youse. Like me to learn youse?” “No,” replied the girl, as she closed the book. “Goils never oin’t no good,” remarked Swot, discontentedly. Really irritated, Miss Durant rose and adjusted her boa. “Swot,” she said, “you are the most ungrateful boy I ever knew, and I’m not merely not going to read any more to-day, but I have a good mind not to come to-morrow, just to punish you.” “Ah, chase youseself!” was the response. “Youse can’t pass dat gold brick on me, well, I guess!” “What are you talking about?” indignantly asked Constance. “Tink Ise oin’t onter youse curves? Tink Ise don’t hear wot de nurse loidies says? Gee! Ise know w’y youse so fond of comin’ here.” “Why do I come here?” asked Constance, in a voice full of warning. The tone was wasted on the boy. “’Cause youse dead gone on de doc.” “I am sorry you don’t know better than to talk like that, Swot,” said the girl, quietly, “because I wanted to be good to you, and now you have put an end to my being able to be. You will have to get some one else to read to you after this. Good-bye.” She passed her hand kindly over his forehead, and turned to find that Dr. Armstrong was standing close behind her, and must have overheard more or less of what had been said. Without a word, and looking straight before her, Constance walked away. Once out of the hospital, her conscience was not altogether easy; and though she kept away the next day, she sent her footman with the usual gift of fruits and other edibles; and this she did again on the morning following. “Of course he didn’t mean to be so atrociously impertinent,” she sighed, in truth missing what had come to be such an amusing and novel way of using up some of each twenty-four hours. “But I can’t, in self-respect, go to him any more.”