now how the little patients bore the
heat. They brought back a sad report. The sick children were suffering
much; the hospital was like a furnace, in spite of all that could be
done to keep it cool. Mrs. Murray sighed for a "country week" for them
all, but knew no way of attaining the desired object, as most of the
people interested in the hospital were out of town.

"Oh, if we could only find a place!" cried Hildegarde, after she had
told about the little pallid faces and the fever-heat in town. "If
there were only some empty house,"--she did not dare to look at Miss
Wealthy as she said this, but kept her eyes on the river (they were all
sitting on the piazza, waiting for the afternoon breeze, which seldom
failed them),--"some quiet place, like Islip, where the poor little
souls could come, for a week or two, till this dreadful heat is past."
Then she told the story of Islip, with its lovely Seaside Home, where
all summer long the poor children come and go, nursed and tended to
refreshment by the black-clad Sisters. Miss Wealthy made no sign, but
sat with clasped hands, her work lying idle in her lap. Rose was very
pale, and trembled with a sense of coming trouble; but Hildegarde's
cheeks were flushed, and her eyes shone with excitement.

There were a few moments of absolute silence, broken only by the hot
shrilling of a locust in a tree hard by; then Zerubbabel Chirk, calmly
unconscious of any thrill in the air, any tension of the nerves, any
crisis impending, paused in his whittling, and instead of carving a
whistle for Benny, cut the Gordian knot.

"Why, there is a house, close by here," he said; "not more 'n half a
mile off. I was going to ask you girls about it. A pretty red house, all
spick and span, and not a soul in it, far as I could see. Why isn't it
exactly the place you want?" He looked from one to the other with
bright, inquiring eyes; but no one answered. "I'm sure it is!" he
continued, with increasing animation. "There's a lawn where the children
could play, and a nice clear brook for 'em to paddle and sail boats in,
and gravel for 'em to dig in,--why, it was _made_ for children!" cried
the boy. "And as for the man that owns it, why, if he doesn't want to
stay there himself, why shouldn't he let some one else have it?--unless
he's an old hunks; and even if he is--" He stopped short, for Rose had
seized his arm with a terrified grasp, and Hildegarde's clear eyes
flashed a silent warning.

Miss Wealthy