san sent
me a dessert yesterday."

"Yes, but she will never be able to move herself. Do you think that poor
Susan will marry John Henry now?"

"I wonder?" replied Mrs. Pendleton vaguely. Then the sound of Harry's
laughter floated in suddenly from the backyard, and her eyes, following
Virginia's, turned automatically to the pantry window.

"They've come home for a snack, I suppose?" she said. "Shall I fix some
bread and preserves for them?"

"Oh, I'll do it," responded Virginia, while she reached for the crock of
blackberry jam on the shelf at her side.

Another week passed and there was no word from Oliver, until Mrs.
Pendleton came in at dusk one evening, with an anxious look on her face
and a folded newspaper held tightly in her hand.

"Have you seen any of the accounts of Oliver's play, Jinny?" she asked.

"No, I haven't had time to look at the papers to-day--Harry has hurt his
foot."

She spoke placidly, looking up from the nursery floor, where she knelt
beside a basin of warm water at Harry's feet. "Poor little fellow, he
fell on a pile of bricks," she added, "but he's such a hero he never
even whimpered, did he, darling?"

"But it hurt bad," said Harry eagerly.

"Of course, it hurt dreadfully, and if he hadn't been a man he would
have cried."

"Sister would have cried," exulted the hero.

"Indeed, sister would have cried. Sister is a girl," responded Virginia,
smothering him with kisses over the basin of water.

But Mrs. Pendleton refused to be diverted from her purpose even by the
heroism of her grandson.

"John Henry found this in a New York paper and brought it to me. He
thought you ought to see it, though, of course, it may not be so
serious as it sounds."

"Serious?" repeated Virginia, letting the soapy washrag fall back into
the basin while she stretched out her moist and reddened hand for the
paper.

"It says that the play didn't go very well," pursued her mother
guardedly. "They expect to take it off at once, and--and Oliver is not
well--he is ill in the hotel----"

"Ill?" cried Virginia, and as she rose to her feet the basin upset and
deluged Harry's shoes and the rug on which she had been kneeling. Her
mind, unable to grasp the significance of a theatrical failure, had
seized upon the one salient fact which concerned her. Plays might
succeed or fail, and it made little difference, but illness was another
matter--illness was something definite and material. Illness could
neither be