r a road that had
been full of suffering on the way out, a fantastic experience in the
matter of legs that wouldn't work and wobbled fearfully, a constant but
properly subdued desire to sing and whistle--oh, it was a glorious dream
that George was having!

For six weeks he was the uninvited guest of Simmy Dodge. Three of those
weeks were terrifying to poor Simmy, and three abounded with the greatest
joy he had ever known, for when George was safely round the corner and on
the road to recovery, the hospitality of Simmy Dodge expanded to hitherto
untried dimensions. Relieved of the weight that had pressed them down to
an inconceivable depth, Simmy's spirits popped upward with an
effervescence so violent that there was absolutely no containing them.
They flowed all over the place. All day long and most of the night they
were active. He hated to go to bed for fear of missing an opportunity to
do something to make everybody happy and comfortable, and he was up so
early in the morning that if he hadn't been in his own house some one
would have sent him back to bed with a reprimand.

He revelled in the establishment of a large though necessarily
disconnected family circle. The nurses, the doctors, the extra servants,
Anne's maid, Anne herself, the indomitable Lutie, and, on occasions, the
impressive Mrs. Tresslyn,--all of these went to make up Simmy's family.

The nurses were politely domineering: they told him what he could do and
what he could not do, and he obeyed them with a cheerfulness that must
have shamed them. The doctors put all manner of restrictions upon him; the
servants neglected to whisper when discussing their grievances among
themselves; his French poodle was banished because canine hospitality was
not one of the niceties, and furthermore it was most annoying to recent
acquaintances engaged in balancing well-filled cups of broth in transit;
his own luxurious bath-room was seized, his bed-chambers invested, his
cosy living-room turned into a rest room which every one who happened to
be disengaged by day or night felt free to inhabit. He had no privacy
except that which was to be found in the little back bedroom into which he
was summarily shunted when the occupation began, and he wasn't sure of
being entirely at home there. At any time he expected a command to
evacuate in favour of an extra nurse or a doctor's assistant. But through
all of it, he shone like a gem of purest ray.

At the outset he realised tha