"Still, of course he knows he's got to do it, because it's out of
doors, and he just has to be out of doors all he can," rejoined the
girl. "He's sick, you know, and sometimes he's so unhappy! He doesn't
say much. Jack never says much--only with his face. But I know, and
it--it just makes me want to cry."

At David's dismayed exclamation Jill jumped to her feet. It owned to
her suddenly that she was telling this unknown boy altogether too many
of the family secrets. She proposed at once a race to the foot of the
hill; and then, to drive David's mind still farther away from the
subject under recent consideration, she deliberately lost, and
proclaimed him the victor.

Very soon, however, there arose new complications in the shape of a
little gate that led to a path which, in its turn, led to a footbridge
across the narrow span of the little stream.

Above the trees on the other side peeped the top of Sunnycrest's
highest tower.

"To the Lady of the Roses!" cried David eagerly. "I know it goes there.
Come, let's see!"

The little girl shook her head.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Jack won't let me."

"But it goes to a beautiful place; I was there yesterday," argued
David. "And I was up in the tower and almost waved to Mr. Jack on the
piazza back there. I saw him. And maybe she'd let you and me go up
there again to-day."

"But I can't, I say," repeated Jill, a little impatiently. "Jack won't
let me even start."

"Why not? Maybe he doesn't know where it goes to."

Jill hung her head. Then she raised it defiantly.

"Oh, yes, he does, 'cause I told him. I used to go when I was littler
and he wasn't here. I went once, after he came,--halfway,--and he saw
me and called to me. I had got halfway across the bridge, but I had to
come back. He was very angry, yet sort of--queer, too. His face was all
stern and white, and his lips snapped tight shut after every word. He
said never, never, never to let him find me the other side of that
gate."

David frowned as they turned to go up the hill. Unhesitatingly he
determined to instruct Mr. Jack in this little matter. He would tell
him what a beautiful place Sunnycrest was, and he would try to convince
him how very desirable it was that he and Jill, and even Mr. Jack
himself, should go across the bridge at the very first opportunity that
offered.

Mr. Jack came home before long, but David quite forgot to speak of the
footbridge just then, chiefly because Mr. Jack got o