ts.

"No, don't move. Why, you did not look as bad as this yesterday," she
added in sympathetic tones, patting his free hand with her own,
her glance wandering over the cramped little room with its meagre
appointments.

Jack smiled faintly and a light gleamed in his eyes. The memory of
yesterday evidently brought no regrets.

"I dared not look any other way," he answered faintly; "I was so afraid
of alarming Miss Ruth." Then after a pause in which the smile and
the gleam flickered over his pain-tortured face, he added in a more
determined voice: "I am glad I went, though the doctor was furious. He
says it was the worst thing I could have done--and thought I ought to
have had sense enough to--But don't let's talk any more about it, Miss
Felicia. It was so good of you to come. Mr. Grayson has just left. You'd
think he was a woman, he is so gentle and tender. But I'll be around in
a day or two, and as soon as I can get on my feet and look less like a
scarecrow than I do, I am coming over to see you and Miss Ruth and--yes,
and UNCLE PETER--" Miss Felicia arched her eyebrows: "Oh, you needn't
look!--that's what I am going to call him after this; we settled all
that last night."

A smile overspread Miss Felicia's face. "Uncle Peter, is it? And I
suppose you will be calling me Aunt Felicia next?"

Jack turned his eyes: "That was just what I was trying to screw up my
courage to do. Please let me, won't you?" Again Miss Felicia lifted her
eyebrows, but she did not say she would.

"And Ruth--what do you intend to call that young lady? Of course,
without her permission, as that seems to be the fashion." And the old
lady's eyes danced in restrained merriment.

The sufferer's face became suddenly grave; for an instant he did not
answer, then he said slowly:

"But what can I call her except Miss Ruth?"

Miss Felicia laughed. Nothing was so delicious as a love affair which
she could see into. This boy's heart was an open book. Besides, this
kind of talk would take his mind from his miseries.

"Oh, but I am not so sure of that," she rejoined, in an encouraging
tone.

A light broke out in Jack's eyes: "You mean that she WOULD let me call
her--call her Ruth?"

"I don't mean anything of the kind, you foolish fellow. You have got to
ask her yourself; but there's no telling what she would not do for you
now, she's so grateful to you for saving her father's life."

"But I did not," he exclaimed, an expression as of acute pai