lankets with many "O--h's" and "O-u-c-h-'s,"
recaptured the letter, and took it growlingly back to his warm bed.

Worn out quite as much with the grinding monotony of his rheumatic
pains as with their actual acuteness, the new discomfort of straining
his eyes under the feeble rays of his night-light seemed almost a
pleasant diversion.

The envelope was certainly fat. As he ripped it open, three or four
folded papers like sleeping-powders, all duly numbered, "1 A. M.," "2
A. M.," "3 A. M.," "4 A. M." fell out of it. With increasing
inquisitiveness he drew forth the letter itself.

"Dear Honey," said the letter quite boldly. Absurd as it was, the
phrase crinkled Stanton's heart just the merest trifle.

"DEAR HONEY:

"There are so many things about your sickness that worry me.
Yes there are! I worry about your pain. I worry about the
horrid food that you're probably getting. I worry about the
coldness of your room. But most of anything in the world I
worry about your _sleeplessness_. Of course you _don't_
sleep! That's the trouble with rheumatism. It's such an old
Night-Nagger. Now do you know what I'm going to do to you?
I'm going to evolve myself into a sort of a Rheumatic Nights
Entertainment--for the sole and explicit purpose of trying
to while away some of your long, dark hours. Because if
you've simply _got_ to stay awake all night long and
think--you might just as well be thinking about ME, Carl
Stanton. What? Do you dare smile and suggest for a moment
that just because of the Absence between us I cannot make
myself vivid to you? Ho! Silly boy! Don't you know that the
plainest sort of black ink throbs more than some blood--and
the touch of the softest hand is a harsh caress compared to
the touch of a reasonably shrewd pen? Here--now, I say--this
very moment: Lift this letter of mine to your face, and
swear--if you're honestly able to--that you can't smell the
rose in my hair! A cinnamon rose, would you say--a yellow,
flat-faced cinnamon rose? Not quite so lusciously fragrant
as those in your grandmother's July garden? A trifle paler?
Perceptibly cooler? Something forced into blossom, perhaps,
behind brittle glass, under barren winter moonshine? And
yet--A-h-h! Hear me laugh! You didn't really mean to let
yourself lift the page and smell it, did you? But what did I
t