d to Anne at the first opportunity.
"Shall I go up at once?"

"Oh, please wait a minute, Doctor Burns; I want to go with you, and I
must see my guests having some tea first."

There followed, for King, what seemed an interminable interval of time,
during which he was forced to sit beside one of Anne's girl cousins--and
a very pretty girl she was, too, only he didn't seem able to appreciate
it--drinking tea, and handing sugar, and doing all the proper things. In
the midst of this Anne vanished with Red Pepper at her heels, leaving
the tea table to Mrs. Coolidge. At this point, however, King found
himself glad to listen to Miss Stockton.

"I don't suppose anybody in the world but Anne Linton Coolidge would
have thought of sending two hundred miles for a surgeon to operate on
her housekeeper," she was saying when his attention was arrested by her
words. "But she thinks such a lot of Timmy--Mrs. Timmins--she would pay
any sum to keep her in the world. She was Anne's nurse, you see, and of
course Anne is fond of her. And I'm sure we're glad she did send for
him, for it gave us the pleasure of meeting Doctor Burns, and of course
we understand now why she thought nobody else in the world could pull
Timmy through. He's such an interesting personality, don't you think so?
We're all crazy about him."

"Oh, yes, everybody's crazy about him," King admitted readily. "And
certainly two hundred miles isn't far to send for a surgeon these days."

"Of course not--only I don't suppose it's done every day for one's
housekeeper, do you? But nobody ever knows what Anne's going to
do--least of all now, when she's just back, after the most extraordinary
performance." She stopped, looking at him curiously. "I suppose you know
all about it--much more than we, in fact, since you met her when she was
in that hospital. Did you ever hear of a rich girl's doing such a thing
anyway? Going off to sell books for a whole year just because"--she
stopped again, and bit her lip, then went on quickly: "Everybody knows
about it, and you would be sure to hear it sooner or later. Doctor Burns
knows, anyhow, and--"

"Please don't tell me anything I oughtn't to hear," Jordan's sense of
honour impelled him to say. He recognized the feminine type before him,
and though he longed to know all about everything he did not want to
know it in any way Anne would not like.

But there was no stopping the fluffy-haired young person. "Really,
everybody knows; the cou