“Well, you will soon have a chance to show her how fast you are getting well,” replied the doctor, smiling. “I wrote her the whole story of last month, the other day, since she is so much stronger, and here is her answer. She will be at home at six o’clock this very afternoon.” The children all exclaimed at once, even Gassy, who threw her arms around Jack’s neck and hugged him, quite forgetting her usual self-repression, and his recent thrust at her honesty. “Hurray!” cried Jack, joyfully, escaping from Gassy and twirling a small chair in air. “It seems too good to be true.” Barbara said nothing. She glanced at her father, who returned her look with one of understanding. They were both thinking of the home-coming as it might have been. “I forget about mother, some,” remarked the Kid. “Was she as nice as Barbara?” David answered him. “They’re both the same kind,” he said quaintly, “but mother’s mother. That’s all the difference.” “We must have a house clean and pretty enough for mother to come back to,” said Barbara, smiling at the invalid. “Gassy, you will have to help a little; there will be so much to do. Jack, take care of David for a little while, please.” “I don’t mind helping,” said Gassy, as they left the room together. “I’d sweep the whole house, if it would bring mother back. I wonder how she’ll think I look, with my hair bobbity. Mercy, Barbara; you dropped one of your letters. Here it is.” “I’ll open it now,” said Barbara, sitting down on the stairs. “Why, it’s from the Infant.” The Infant’s letter was short and to the point. “You haven’t written me or the other girls for three months,” it began; “and I shall punish you. I shan’t tell you that Atalanta is engaged, and that the Sphinx is too, though how it happened, I don’t see. The man must have been able to answer some of her mathematical riddles, or he never could have reached her heart. And I won’t tell you about my summer abroad,—not a word,—nor how Knowledge is going to be a post-grad. at Columbia, and visit me at the end of every week. You don’t deserve a line, Barbara Grafton! But I am writing to tell you that I just heard—no matter how—that you refused the Eastman Scholarship, and to ask you mildly whether you are insane. With all your talent and ability, Babbie, how could you refuse it? Every one always knew that you should have had it in the first place. Now you surely are not going to stay in that little town of yours that you have so often ridiculed. There is only one reason by which I can account for it, and I don’t think you can be in love.” Barbara laughed aloud, and folded up the letter. “To think that I wanted it so much,” she said aloud, unconsciously. “What if I had not been here this autumn!” “Hadn’t been here?” repeated Gassy. “Why, Barbara! Did you ever think of leaving us?” Barbara threw an arm around her sister’s shoulders. “I wouldn’t leave you for anything,” she said.