he wisdom
of keeping her. The nurse was to leave as soon as Jack was able to sit
up, and Mary would have her hands full then. He would need constant
attendance at first, the nurse told her, and since he could never take
any exercise, only daily massage would keep up his strength.

"I shall begin teaching you how to give it just as soon as he rallies a
little more," the nurse promised, "You will have to be both hands and
feet for him for many a week to come, poor boy, and feet always. It is
good that you are so strong and untiring yourself."

For awhile Mary went about feeling like a visitor, since there was
little for her to do either in kitchen or sick-room. Jack had not yet
reached the stage when he needed amusement. He seemed glad that she was
home, and his eyes followed her wistfully about the room, but he did not
attempt to talk much. Sometimes the emptiness of the hours palled on her
till she felt that she could not endure it. She wrote long letters to
Joyce and Betty and all the school-girls with whom she wanted to keep up
a correspondence. She mended everything she could find that needed
mending, and she spent many hours telling her mother all that had
happened in her absence. But for once in her life her usual resources
failed her.

The little mining camp of Lone-Rock was high up in the hills, so that
April there was not like the Aprils she had known at the Wigwam. There
were still patches of snow under the pine trees above the camp. But the
stir of spring was in the air, and every afternoon, while Mrs. Ware was
resting, Mary slipped away for a long walk. Sometimes she would
scramble up the hill-side to the great over-hanging rock which gave the
place its name, and sit looking down at the tiny village below. It was
just a cluster of miners' shacks, most of them inhabited by Mexicans.
There were the Company's stores and the post-office, and away at the
farther end of the one street were the houses of the few American
families who had found their way to Lone-Rock, either on account of the
mines or the healthful climate of the pine-covered hills. She could
distinguish the roof of their own cottage among them, and the chimney of
the little, unpainted school-house.

She wondered what the outcome of all their troubles was to be. She
couldn't go on in this aimless way, day after day. She must find
something to do that would pay her a salary, and it must be something
that she could do at home, where she would be ne