r?"

"I'll take the water, please," laughed Barbara, "but I want more than a
lily full."

Eloise brought a glass of water and managed to give it to Barbara
without spilling more than a third of it upon her. "What a pretty neck
and what glorious shoulders you have," she commented, as she wiped up
the water with her handkerchief. "How lovely you'd look in an evening
gown."

"Don't try to divert me," said Barbara, with affected sternness. "I'm
wet, and I'm likely to take cold and die."

"I'm not afraid of your dying after you've lived through what you have.
Allan says you're the bravest little thing he has ever seen."

The deep colour dyed Barbara's pale face. "I'm not brave," she
whispered; "I was horribly afraid, but I thought that, even if I were,
I could keep people from knowing it."

"If that isn't real courage," Eloise assured her, "it's so good an
imitation that it would take an expert to tell the difference."

"I'm afraid now," continued Barbara. Her colour was almost gone and she
did not look at Eloise. "I'm afraid that, after all, I can never walk."
She indicated the crutches at the foot of her bed by a barely
perceptible nod. "I have Aunt Miriam keep them there so that I won't
forget."

"Nonsense," cried Eloise. "Allan says that you have every possible
chance, so don't be foolish. You're going to walk--you must walk. Why,
you mustn't even think of anything else."

"It would seem strange," sighed Barbara, "after almost twenty-two years,
why--what day of the month is to-day?"

"The sixteenth."

[Sidenote: Twenty-two]

"Then it is twenty-two. This is my birthday--I'm twenty-two years old
to-day."

"Fairy Godchild, why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I'd forgotten it myself."

"You're too young to begin to forget your birthdays. I'm past thirty,
but I still 'keep tab' on mine."

"If you're thirty, I must be at least forty, for I'm really much older
than you are. And Roger is an infant in arms compared with me."

"Wise lady, how did you grow so old in so short a time?"

"By working and reading, and thinking--and suffering, I suppose."

"When you're well, dear, I'm going to try to give you some of the
girlhood you've never had. You're entitled to pretty gowns and parties
and beaux, and all the other things that belong to the teens and
twenties. You're coming to town with me, I hope--that's why I'm
staying."

Barbara's blue eyes filled and threatened to overflow. "Oh, Fairy
Godmother, how lov