as a boy and the Helen
he had met that forenoon. Her face, as she had welcomed him at the
parsonage door--it was surprising how clearly it showed before his
mind's eye. He had thought at first that she had not changed in
appearance. That was not quite true--she had changed a little, but it
was merely the fulfillment of a promise, that was all. Her eyes, her
smile above a hospital bed--he could imagine what they must have seemed
like to a lonely, homesick boy wrestling with the "flu."

"And, don't talk!" he heard the housekeeper say, as he drifted out of
his reverie, "if she wa'n't popular around that hospital, around both
hospitals, fur's that goes! The patients idolized her, and the other
nurses they loved her, and the doctors--"

"Did they love her, too?" Albert asked, with a smile, as she hesitated.

She laughed. "Some of 'em did, I cal'late," she answered. "You see, I
got most of my news about it all from Bessie Ryder, Cornelius Ryder's
niece, lives up on the road to the Center; you used to know her, Albert.
Bessie was nursin' in that same hospital, the one Helen was at first.
'Cordin' to her, there was some doctor or officer tryin' to shine up to
Helen most of the time. When she was at Eastview, so Bessie heard, there
was a real big-bug in the Army, a sort of Admiral or Commodore amongst
the doctors he was, and HE was trottin' after her, or would have been if
she'd let him. 'Course you have to make some allowances for Bessie--she
wouldn't be a Ryder if she didn't take so many words to say so little
that the truth gets stretched pretty thin afore she finished--but there
must have been SOMETHIN' in it. And all about her bein' such a wonderful
nurse and doin' so much for the Red Cross I KNOW is true. . . . Eh? Did
you say anything, Albert?"

Albert shook his head. "No, Rachel," he replied. "I didn't speak."

"I thought I heard you or somebody say somethin'. I--Why, Laban Keeler,
what are you doin' away from your desk this time in the afternoon?"

Laban grinned as he entered the kitchen.

"Did I hear you say you thought you heard somebody sayin' somethin',
Rachel?" he inquired. "That's queer, ain't it? Seemed to me _I_ heard
somebody sayin' somethin' as I come up the path just now. Seemed as if
they was sayin' it right here in the kitchen, too. 'Twasn't your
voice, Albert, and it couldn't have been Rachel's, 'cause she NEVER
talks--'specially to you. It's too bad, the prejudice she's got against
you, Albert," h