greed to take to his bed for a few days in the
hope of luring nature to a hasty cure. The professor was rather
helpless when he was ill; Jane was painfully and triumphantly
energetic. One memorable day, when the invalid had fallen into a
restless sleep, he was awakened by the vigorous ministrations of Jane,
who was creaking around the room in an ostentatious effort, to be
quiet. The professor looked and wondered what she would do if he were
to yell. Seeing he was awake, she stepped over briskly and began to
arrange his bedclothes and pillows. Her hand touched his sore leg. He
winced and groaned inwardly.

"I am going to sit here and read to you," she announced with the stern
cheerfulness which gave the recipient of her benefits a fitting sense
of the self-sacrifice which prompted them. Jane usually read tracts,
and the professor did not feel religious; in fact he was conscious of
an emotion of most unchristian belligerence.

"Aren't you neglecting your house-work to attend to me?" remarked the
victim with clumsy and obvious intent.

"My house is always in order, professor," answered the supremely
ignorant one tartly.

"How fortunate; my study, too,--I suppose that is in order?" The
professor felt most out of place as an inquisitor but he was
desperate.

Jane looked at him, with as near a quizzical expression as her very
unquizzical nature would permit.

"You know I'd do it if you weren't so stubborn about using a
wastebasket instead of that desk," she said.

"Better clean it out, Jane--clean it all out--anything, anything,--"
but she was gone. He took the tract which she had left on his table
and carefully tore it in four pieces, and hid them under the mattress.
Then he went to sleep. The professor was in distinctly a rebellious
mood.

In the natural course of time, which, when one has numerous queer
pains in most unexpected places, is short,--the professor awoke and
lay on his back watching a fly walking around the edge of a rosebud.
Pretty soon the fly flew away--then the professor thought of something
else--something he had not thought of for some years. Strange how
inactivity of the body affects one. The professor raised himself in
bed with some effort and drew on his dressing gown and slippers. Then
he hobbled across the room, out of the door, and down the hallway
towards his study.

At the turn of the narrow corridor the odor of long-hidden dust met
him,--and he hobbled faster. His lips were set in a