e would like to come in here with us?" suggested
Barbara. "She may be lonely all by herself."

"I don't believe she is lonely," said Marjorie, doubtfully, "but if you
think she might like to come--"

A ring at the door-bell brought Marjorie's sentence to an abrupt end,
and both girls sprang to their feet.

"I'll see who it is," said Barbara; "it may be a message from Mother."
And she flew to open the door, while Marjorie sank back in her seat,
feeling suddenly cold and sick with fear.

But it was not a message from Mrs. Randolph; it was Elsie.

"I just came to ask if you had heard anything yet," she said, looking
rather embarrassed, as she noticed the expression of disappointment on
Barbara's face.

"No, we haven't," Barbara answered; "we thought it might be a message
when we heard the bell. Won't you come in?"

Elsie hesitated.

"Do you really want me?" she asked, doubtfully; "I thought perhaps you
would rather be by yourselves."

"Of course we want you," declared Barbara, heartily, while Marjorie--in
the background--gave a little gasp of astonishment. Such humility from
the proud Elsie was something that had never entered her imagination.

Elsie made no remark, but she came in, and followed Barbara to the
sitting-room, where Marjorie smiled a welcome which appeared to set her
cousin more at her ease.

"I am sure you must be almost as anxious as we are," said Barbara,
"though of course you don't know Miss Jessie as well. No one could help
loving her."

"No, they couldn't," agreed Elsie, in a rather low voice, and then she
walked over to the window, and stood with her back to the others,
looking out at the falling rain.

Nobody talked much during the next half-hour. Marjorie and Barbara both
had lumps in their throats, and words did not come easily. Elsie, too,
was unusually silent. There was another little excitement when the bell
rang again, and Beverly came in. Beverly had been through a great deal
during the past two weeks, but boys of eighteen cannot live on high
pressure for very long without a reaction setting in. Beverly was a very
natural, healthy-minded boy, and the reaction in his case took the form
of unusually high spirits.

"Don't all have such long faces," he remarked, cheerfully, surveying the
solemn little group. "Just make up your minds everything is coming out
all right, and you'll see it will. I've got more faith in Uncle George
than in any other surgeon in the country. Think of wha