to it by this
time."

"And is he no worse for coming to meet us, Aunt Felicia?" Ruth asked,
her voice betraying her anxiety. She had relieved the old lady of her
cloak now, and had passed one arm around her slender waist.

"No, he doesn't seem to be, dearie. Tired, of course--and it may keep
him in bed a day or two longer, but it won't make any difference in his
getting well. He will be out in a week or so."

Ruth paused for a moment and then asked in a hesitating way, all her
sympathy in her eyes:

"And I don't suppose there is anybody to look after him, is there?"

"Oh, yes, plenty: Mrs. Hicks seems a kind, motherly person, and then Mr.
Bolton's sister runs in and out." It was marvellous how little interest
the dear woman took in the condition of the patient. Again the girl
paused. She was sorry now she had not braved everything and gone with
her.

"And did he send me any message, aunty?" This came quite as a matter of
form--merely to learn all the details.

"Oh, yes,--I forgot: he told me to tell you how glad he was to hear your
father was getting well," replied Miss Felicia searching the mantel for
a book she had placed there.

Ruth bit her lips and a certain dull feeling crept about her heart.
Jack, with his broken arm and bruised head rose before her. Then another
figure supplanted it.

"And what sort of a girl is that Miss Bolton?" There was no
curiosity--merely for information. "Uncle Peter was so full of her
brother and how badly he had been hurt he hardly mentioned her name"

"I did not see her very well; she was just coming out of her brother's
room, and the hall was dark. Oh, here's my book--I knew I had left it
here."

"Pretty?" continued Ruth, in a slightly anxious tone.

"No,--I should say not," replied the old lady, moving to the door.

"Then you don't think there is anything I can do?" Ruth called after
her.

"Not now."

Ruth picked up Miss Felicia's wrap from the chair where that lady had
thrown it, mounted the stairs, peered from between the pots of geraniums
screening a view of the street with the Hicks Hotel dominating one
corner, wondered which window along the desolate front gave Jack light
and air, and with whispered instructions to the nurse to be sure and let
her know when her father awoke, shut herself in her room.

As for the horrible old ogre who had made all the trouble, nipping off
buds, skewering butterflies and otherwise disporting herself after the
manner of busyb