well be content now. It was too late to get a
ticket, too late to say good-bye to Sam, too late to do anything but
attend to the people who came in the station after the train pulled
out.

"Have you seen the carriage from the sanitarium?"

The speaker, who had just alighted from the train, addressed Tavia,
but the latter was so surprised that she caught her finger in the
ticket stamper. Before the little window stood a young woman in the
garb of a nurse--and she wanted the carriage from the sanitarium.

"If you will wait a minute or two the agent will be back," said Tavia
in her very nicest voice. "He is just putting the mail on the train."

"Dear me!" and the nurse turned away. Then she returned. "Are you his
daughter?"

"No, his--his niece," quibbled Tavia. What else could she do just
then? And didn't Sam say he would adopt her?

"Well, since you are going to be around here we may as well get
acquainted--I shall probably have plenty of calls at the station. I
see you are the whole service outfit. The telephone, telegraph, and, I
suppose, the--Press Bureau."

"Oh, yes," replied Tavia, not grasping the sarcasm of the "Press"
remark. "Uncle Sam has a great deal to attend to."

The nurse laughed to show her pretty teeth, Tavia thought. She was
pretty, and her immaculate white linen was immensely becoming.

"My name is--Bell--Mary Bell," she said, "and yours is----"

"Betsy Dixon," replied Tavia. (Oh, what a tangled web we weave!)

"What a charming name--Betsy Dixon! Quite like a--bullet from Molly
Pitcher's gun," said the nurse. Tavia smiled but failed to catch the
significance of that remark. Betsy was a good old name. Why like a war
bullet?

"Here is the station agent," said Tavia, as Sam limped back. "Uncle
Sam, have you seen the carriage from the sanitarium?"

Tavia could not overlook the joy in that name--Uncle Sam. It was so
simple, and so mouth-fitting.

"Here it comes," replied Sam, also noting how nicely Tavia fell into
her role. "But is this the new nurse? I have an important message for
Miss Bennet. That's her--in the carriage."

"Miss Bennet! Why, she's my classmate! I never expected to find her,
out here in the hills," spoke the stranger.

The carriage drew up to the little platform. Miss Bennet alighted and
Miss Bell hurried out to meet her.

"Oh, you dear thing!"--this was very extravagant for trained and
graduated nurses--"to think I should meet you here! Isn't it just too
nice!" It