ould not be put off by any vagueness.

The doctor told Billy Louise in terms that carried no meaning whatever
to her mind. She gathered merely that it was rather serious if it
persisted--whatever it was--and that she must not leave her mommie for
many hours at a time, because she might have another attack at any
time. The doctor told her, however, in plain English that mommie was
well over this attack--whatever it was--and that she need only be kept
quiet for a few days and given the medicine--whatever that was--that he
had left.

"It does seem as if everything is all muffled up in mystery!" she
complained, when he drove away. "I can fight anything I can see, but
when I've got to go blindfolded--" She brushed her fingers across her
eyes and glanced hurriedly into the little looking-glass that hung
beside the door. "Yes, mommie, just a minute," she called cheerfully.

She ran into her own room, grabbed a can of talcum, and did not wait to
see whether she applied it evenly to her telltale eyelids, but dabbed
at them on the way to her mother's room.

"Doctor says you're all right, mommie; only you mustn't go digging
post-holes or shoveling hay for awhile."

"No, I guess not!" Her mother responded unconsciously to the
stimulation of Billy Louise's tone. "I couldn't dig holes with a
teaspoon, I'm that weak and useless. Did he say what it was, Billy
Louise?" The sick are always so curious about their illnesses!

"Oh, your lumbago got to scrapping with your liver. I forget the name
he gave it, but it's nothing to worry about." Billy Louise had
imagination, remember.

"I guess he'd think it was something to worry about, if he had it," her
mother retorted fretfully, but reassured nevertheless by the casual
manner of Billy Louise. "I believe I could eat a little mite of toast
and drink some tea," she added tentatively.

"And an egg poached soft if you want it, mom. Phoebe just brought in
the eggs." Billy Louise went out humming unconcernedly under her
breath as if she had not a care beyond the proper toasting of the bread
and brewing of the tea.

One need not go to war or voyage to the far corners of the earth to
find the stuff heroes are made of.

CHAPTER XIV

EACH IN HIS OWN TRAIL

Since nothing in this world is absolutely immutable--the human emotions
least of all, perhaps--Billy Louise did not hold changeless her broken
faith in Ward. She saw it broken into fragments before the evidence of