out Gabriel, and Uncle
Cliff had said little. But he was ready for further investigation.

"I'm not sure that I like the idea of you going about these hospitals,
Honey--especially where patients are tubercular. You can contract these
things, you know."

Blue Bonnet laughed her scorn.

"How perfectly ridiculous! I'm as healthy as ever I can be. Why, look at
me! I've put on eight pounds in three months. That's the very worst of
boarding-school--- it's bound to make you fat. Poor Wee Watts is
discouraged to death."

At the hospital, although it was not visiting hour, they were allowed to
see Gabriel.

"He's not been so well the past week," Miss Warren, the nurse, said. "I
think it is the confinement. It is beginning to tell upon him. He ought
to be out in the country in the sunshine."

Blue Bonnet sat down on the bed and took hold of the little hand. It was
hot and feverish.

"What's the matter, Gabriel?" she said. "This won't do. You promised me
that you would get well."

"I will," the child maintained stoutly. "There ain't nothing the
matter." The bright eyes flashed a smile.

"We're twins,--me and her," Gabriel announced, directing his remarks to
Mr. Ashe. "Our birthdays are the same."

"So I understand."

"Are you her father?"

"Yes, and her uncle, too."

Gabriel seemed mystified.

"You see, I haven't any father--or mother either, Gabriel. My uncle has
to be both," Blue Bonnet explained.

"That's like me, too. I'm a orphant!"

Blue Bonnet caught her breath quickly. To be an orphan--and ill;
desperately poor, too! The world wasn't such a cheerful place after all.

"I lent the soldiers to another feller," Gabriel said presently. "He's
sicker than I am."

"Then you shall have some more, Gabriel. It was fine of you to be so
unselfish."

"I wasn't. They made me!"

The nurse started to explain. Gabriel interrupted.

"I want my own--they can fight like--I didn't say it, did I? I told you
I wouldn't never again, Miss Warren."

Miss Warren's brow cleared.

"These children have some street expressions that are hard to break,"
she said. "Gabriel is trying very hard to be a gentleman. He got so
excited over the soldiers, Miss Ashe, that we had to take them away."

"_She_ says--" Gabriel began, pointing to Blue Bonnet, "she says you got
ponies where you live, an' you can ride 'em. Can you?"

Mr. Ashe smiled.

"Yes. Lots of them. Would you like to ride a pony, Gabriel?"

"Bet yer!"

Mr. Ashe r