"Oh, oh, oh. It's better than a fairy tale. I'm so happy I could die,
but instead I'm going to get well right off. I'm well _now_; where are
my clothes?"

The little bare feet sought for bedroom slippers, and the light curls
bobbed energetically as she enunciated, "Now that I've got you two I
mean to keep you forever and ever. If you, Uncle Don, would only mar
..."

The man made haste to clap his hand over the offending mouth; but he was
too late. Rose had heard, and, with glowing cheeks, replied quickly,
"But you forget that Uncle Don adopted me as a little sister, long ago."

She slipped her hand through his arm and pressed it close to her for a
moment, before laughing gayly, "Run along, man. Milady is about to dress
and this is no place for you."

CHAPTER XXXI

THE VALLEY OF INDECISION

Early evening it was, several days later, evening of a sultry, stifling
day, which had escaped the bounds of longitude and invaded even the
North Shore. The open ocean, itself, seemed to have forgotten its
habitual unrest and yielded to the general languor. From the Thayers'
summer home--a glorified bungalow, broad of veranda and shingled
silvery-olive, atop a long, terraced bank--it had the appearance of a
limitless mirror, reflecting the unblemished blue infinity of the sky.
Only the never-ceasing series of vague white lines which ever crept up
the shelving beach, to vanish like half-formed dreams, showed that,
although the mighty deep slept, its bosom rose and fell as it breathed.

The sky was a hazy horizon blue, unblemished save for a few vaporous
clouds far in the west; the sun, well toward the end of its journey, was
hazy, too, a thing of mystery; in the far eastern distance the broad
Atlantic softened to a hazy violet-gray which, in turn, blended, almost
without a line of demarcation, into the still more distant heavens.

Far out, above the waters, a solitary gull circled with slow, sweeping
curves, and now and again planed to the surface of the sea and struck
from it a faint white spark.

On the screened-in veranda, the members of the family, which now
included Rose, sat or reclined, in attitudes of indolence, the men in
negligee shirts and white flannels, the women in light dresses.
Rose--who had, the day before, officially declared herself "off" the
case; but had stayed on, a guest, at the general solicitation--wore a
white dimity faintly sprinkled with her favorite rosebuds.

Her ex-patient sat on a lit