the hose is still dripping."

"All right. Come, I am just all a-quiver to see Grandie. And, girls,
will you mind if I ask you to go out first? I must bring one little
thing to Grandie, and it's part of our secret." She smiled sweetly and
the girls answered with just as pretty, dimpled acquiescence.

No one would dream of inquiring what Mary was bringing to the sick man
at Crow's Nest, but it seemed to be associated with the orchids. Just
why anything there should be made a secret of puzzled the girls.

In a few minutes Mary joined them on the porch, and Tom threw in the
clutch of the car, rather impatiently, as they piled in the machine
again.

It was a perfect day, and the girls fairly bubbled with the joy of it,
as the taxi rattled on.

"You come in with me, won't you, Cleo?" Mary asked, when the car swung
into Crow's Nest tan-barked drive.

"If you want me to," assented Cleo, "but do you think your Grandie
would like a third party to spoil your fairy confab?"

"Oh, I am sure he would like to meet all the girls again," Mary spoke
politely, "but just to-day among those strangers, perhaps two of us
would be best."

So it was agreed, and Cleo jumped out with Mary, while Grace and
Madaline prepared to play "finger scotch" while they waited outside in
the car.

A boy in white duck uniform opened the door and showed the girls into a
very restful waiting room. Presently a white robed nurse appeared,
took Mary's name simply as "Mary to see Professor Benson," went to a
wall phone, and returned to conduct the girls to the waiting patient.

What a lovely surprise! There sat the professor out in a big,
comfortable steamer chair, on the loveliest little porch, right out of
the window from his own room.

"Grandie! Grandie, dear!" cried Mary, almost running to throw her arms
around him.

"Mary, Mary darling!" he answered, extending his hands to meet her
embrace.

Cleo held back. She would not intrude on that moment of happiness, as
the two, speechless with affection, held each other in fond embrace.
Then Mary threw up her head to look in the face of the man who seemed
the only parent and protector she had known for so long a time.

"How perfectly lovely you look, Grandie!" she exclaimed. "Why,
whatever did they do to you? You--look so--different."

She was studying a change, unable to name it, but impossible to escape
it. He was different. His eyes were bright, and they looked at her
with a focus dir