like to see one of herself," she added. "She has such
a--brilliant face. I can't think of any other word to describe it!
When she looks at you she looks as if she--cared so much to see what
you were like!" She laughed at her own attempt to make her description
clear. "Not as if she were curious, you know, but as if she were
interested--attracted. Can you imagine the expression?"

Leaver leaned his head back against the apple-tree trunk, and closed his
eyes. The spice-pink, still held at his nostrils, shielded his lips. He
looked rather white, his nurse noticed, but she had become accustomed to
seeing these moments come upon him--they passed away again, and Dr. Burns
had said that no notice need be taken of them unless they were long in
passing. In spite of his pallor, he spoke naturally enough.

"Yes, I have seen such a face. But many women--Southern women,
especially--have that look of being absorbed in what one is saying; it is
a pretty trick of theirs. Won't you sit down, too, on this old bench? It
is so warm yet, we may as well rest a little and walk when it is dusk and
cooler."

She sat down beside him, a pleasant picture to look at in her white lawn
in which, at Ellen's suggestion, she now made of herself, in the
afternoons, a figure less severe than in her uniform. She had even added
a touch of turquoise to the chaste whiteness of the dress, a colour which
brought out the beauty of her deep blue eyes and fair cheeks and even
lent warmth to the pale hues of her hair.

"If you want to sit here, Dr. Leaver, I might run across and bring the
book we are reading. Would you like to hear a chapter?"

"Thank you, not to-night. It's a great book, and stirs the blood with its
attempt to tell the story of a war whose real story can never be told by
any one, no matter what skill the historian brings to the telling. But
I'm not in the mood for it to-night. I wonder if, instead, you won't tell
me a bit about yourself. You've never said a word about the work you do
with my friend, Dr. Burns. Do you like it?"

She hesitated. Was this a safe subject, she wondered, for a surgeon who,
she understood, had broken down from overwork? But the question had been
asked.

"Very much," she answered, quietly. "One could hardly help liking work
under Dr. Burns."

"Why? Do you think him a fine operator?"

"Very fine. He is considered the best in the city, now, I believe, even
though his office is out here in the village. Of course it