see the
girls. The man I stayed over to nurse is my brother!"

CHAPTER XXIII

ANOTHER STORY

"Oh, Miss Robbins!" exclaimed Belle.

"My dear! I am so sorry to see you ill!"

"Yes, but Cora----"

"Hush, my dear. You will not get strong while you worry so. Of course,
you cannot stop at once, but you must try."

Hazel, Betty and Bess had withdrawn. What a relief it was already to
have some one who just knew how to control Belle. It had been so
difficult for the young girls to try to console her, and her nerves had
worked so sadly upon their own.

"I suppose you thought I was a perfectly dreadful young woman," said Dr.
Robbins cheerily. "But you did not know (she sighed effectively) that
every one has her own troubles, while a doctor has her own and a whole
lot of others."

"Had you trouble?" Belle asked sympathetically.

"Indeed I had, and still have. You should know. But wait, I'll just
call the girls in and make a clean breast of it. It will save me further
trouble."

The tactful young doctor had planned to tell her story as much for the
purpose of diverting Belle's mind as for any other reason. She called to
the girls, who were in an adjoining room. How the strain of that one
dreadful week had told upon their fresh young faces! Bess had almost
lost her peach-blow; Hazel, never highly colored, but always bright of
eye, showed signs even of pallor; Betty had put on too much color, that
characteristic of the excitable disposition when the skin is the
thermometer of the nerves, and her eyes not only sparkled, but actually
glittered. All this was instantly apparent to the trained eye of the
young doctor.

"Come in, girls," she said. "I have decided to make a full confession."

They looked at her in astonishment. What could she mean? Might she have
married the sick man? This thought flashed into the mind of more than
one of the party.

"You thought I deserted you?" began Miss Robbins.

"It looked like it," murmured Bess.

"Well, when I went out on that lawn to work over the injured, I found
there a long-lost brother!"

"Brother?"

"Yes, really. It is a strange story, but for three years mother and I
have tried every means to find Leland. He was such a beautiful young
fellow, and such a joy to us, but he got interested in social problems,
and got to thinking that the poor were always oppressed, and all that
sort of thing. Well, he had just finished college, and we hoped for s