ks took on a deeper colour and she smiled, but there was something
in her deep eyes that Roger had never seen there before.

"I've missed you so," he went on.

"And I have missed you." She did not dare to say how much.

"How long must you lie here?"

"Not much longer, I hope. Somebody is coming down next week to take off
the plaster; then, after I've stayed in bed a little longer, they'll see
whether I can walk or not."

[Sidenote: The Crutches]

She sighed wistfully and a strange expression settled on her face as she
looked at the crutches which still leaned against the foot of her bed.

"Why do you have those there?" asked Roger, quickly.

"To remind me always that I mustn't hope too much. It's just a chance,
you know."

"If you don't need them again, may I have them?"

"Why?" she asked, startled.

"Because they are yours--they've seemed a part of you ever since I've
known you. I couldn't bear to have thrown away anything that was part of
you, even if you've outgrown it."

"Certainly," answered Barbara, in a high, uncertain voice. "You're very
welcome and I hope you can have them."

"Barbara!" Roger knelt beside the bed, still keeping her hand in his.
"What did I say that was wrong?"

"Nothing," she answered, with difficulty. "But, after bearing all this,
it seems hard to think that you don't want me to be--to be separated
from my crutches. Because they have belonged to me always--you think
they always must."

"Barbara! When you've always understood me, must I begin explaining to
you now? I've never had anything that belonged to you, and I thought you
wouldn't mind, if it was something you didn't need any more--I wouldn't
care what it was--if----"

"I see," she interrupted. A blinding flash of insight had, indeed, made
many things wonderfully clear. "Here--wouldn't you rather have this?"

[Sidenote: A Knot of Blue Ribbon]

She slipped a knot of pale blue ribbon from the end of one of her long,
golden braids, and gave it to him.

"Yes," he said. Then he added, anxiously, "are you sure you don't need
it? If you do----"

"If I do," she answered, smiling, "I'll either get another, or tie my
braid with a string."

Outwardly, they were back upon the old terms again, but, for the first
time since the mud-pie days, Barbara was self-conscious. Her heart beat
strangely, heavy with the prescience of new knowledge. When Roger rose
from his chair with a bit of blue ribbon protruding from his coat
pocket