on I ever saw, and I'm going to sleep better to-night than I
have for weeks."

"Thank God for that!" thought Lee, and kissed the thin cheek of the girl
with brotherly fervor.

Down-stairs in the hall a few minutes later Andrew Churchill advanced to
meet his wife, as she returned to him after ministering to Evelyn Lee's
wants.

"Do you know," said he, looking straight down into her eyes as she came
up to him, "those words of Stevenson's--though they always fit you--seem
particularly applicable to you to-night?

"Steel-true and blade-straight
The great artificer
Made my mate.'"

* * * * *

CHAPTER IV

"I think," said Doctor Churchill, leaning back in his office chair, with
a mingling of the professional and the friendly in his air, "that we can
get at the bottom of Evelyn's troubles without very much difficulty." He
had just sent Evelyn back to Charlotte, after an hour in the office,
during which he had subjected her to a minute and painstaking
examination into the cause of her ill health. And now to her brother,
anxiously awaiting his verdict, he spoke his mind.

"If you'll let me be very frank with you, Thorne," he said, "I'll tell
you just what I think about Evelyn, and just what it seems to me is the
proper course for us to take with her."

"Go ahead; it's exactly that I want," Lee declared. "I know well enough
that my care of her has been seriously at fault."

"Never in intention," said Doctor Churchill, "only in the excess of your
tenderness. Evelyn has lived in overheated rooms, with hot baths,
insufficient exercise, and improper food. In the kindness of your heart
you have been nourishing a little hot-house plant, and there's no
occasion for surprise that it wilts at the first blast of ordinary air."

Lee looked dismayed.

"I'm mighty sorry, Andy," he said, remorsefully.

"Don't feel too badly," was his friend's reply. "After a winter with us
Evelyn will be another girl."

"What?" Lee started in his chair. "Andy, what are you thinking about?"

"Just what I say. Charlotte and I have talked it all over. We've both
taken an immense liking to Evelyn and we'd honestly enjoy having her
here for the winter. It only remains for you to convince Evelyn herself
that we are to be trusted, and to secure her promise that we may have
our way with her from first to last, and the thing is done."

"You are sure that's really all there is to it? You're not