r
face and peeping out at me from between her fingers. "You look so thin
and changed, Floyd! I knew you would, and I dreaded to see you: I am
afraid of sick people."

"I am harmless enough. Am I very horrible?"

"You are dreadfully white, and your eyes were not so large before you
were sick. Oh, how many times I have asked the boys how you were!"

"But you never came, Georgy."

"Oh, I am past sixteen now, and mamma will not let me go and see boys."

"I see," said I with an indefinable sigh, "that you are almost a woman.
And Jack is eighteen."

"The boys are so full of their examinations! Do you think Jack will
pass? He is such a stupid old dear! I always feel as if I knew the most,
yet I know nothing--actually nothing at all."

"Jack will pass. Whatever place in the world he tries for will always be
ready and waiting for him. I am more anxious about Harry: he cares so
little about his chances, and trusts always to inspiration and good
luck."

Georgy looked at me somewhat curiously: "Don't you feel badly, Floyd, to
have the boys go to college and leave you behind?"

We three had planned years ago how we were to enter college together,
yet no one of us had yet alluded to my disappointment, and it was
difficult for me to bear her question and answer it unflinchingly.

"This is one of my many hard things to bear, Georgy."

"'Tis dreadful for you," she exclaimed with energy. "To think what you
were, Floyd, a tall, handsome, dandified fellow, and now changed all at
once into a hopeless cripple!"

I even found the strength to endure this and give no sign. In my darkest
hours of dejection I had said these words to myself, but no one had
hitherto uttered them within my hearing.

"I wonder," she went on, "what you will do? Shall you try to be a
doctor, Floyd?"

"No, Georgy: I have given up that idea."

"It does seem wretched. What does Mr. Floyd say?"

"Everything that is most considerate. I have had a hard experience,
Georgy, but I have at last learned how tender and faithful many of my
friends are." I regarded her steadily, and she flushed crimson.

"I suppose you think," she retorted, "that I might have come to see you
oftener. But to tell you the truth, Floyd, I have been almost angry with
you, and so has mamma. Of course it was not your fault that you fell
down the cliff, and I almost felt as if I were to blame a little about
it, although not nearly so much as that silly Helen. To think of her
going aft