r father, and I don't wonder that he gave you a lot of money.
Was it ... was it as much as a ... a thousand dollars?" she asked in an
awed tone.

"Yes, indeed, much more than that, in fact."

"Not five thousand?"

Donald laughed. "The newspaper men, who had somehow or other got wind of
the story--goodness knows how--tried mighty hard to get me to tell them
how much, but I wouldn't. However, since I know that you can keep a
secret, I will tell you. It was just ten times the amount of your last
guess."

"Oh!" she gasped, as the result of the multiplication dawned upon her.
"Why, it was a fortune, and ... and _I_ know you."

"Of course it pleased me," was his answer, "but not half as much as the
result of the operation, dear. If a doctor is really in earnest, and
bound up in his work, he never thinks whether the little sufferer
stretched before him in bed, or on the operating table, has a father
worth a million dollars, or one in the poorhouse. That is the reason why
we have to charge for our services by a different standard from men in
almost any other kind of work. The rich man has to help pay for the poor
man, whether he wants to or not. I meant to charge that very rich man
enough so that I could give myself to a great many poor children without
charging them anything, perhaps; but he had a big heart and sent me that
check for several times what I should have charged without even waiting
for me to make out a bill. And his letter, which came with it, said that
even fifty thousand dollars was poor compensation for a life worth more
to him than all the money in the whole world."

"A little child's life _is_ more precious than all the gold that ever
was," said Smiles seriously, "for only God can give it."

CHAPTER XIV

SOWING THE WIND

The noonday meal was a rather quiet, constrained affair. None of the
three was in a talkative mood, Donald was still distrait, Big Jerry
obviously in physical and mental distress, and Rose too full of troubled
sympathy for conversation. Frequently Donald caught her gaze fixed on
the old man's face with an expression of unutterable love; and as often,
when she saw him watching her, her face lighted for a moment with a
tender, compassionate smile.

The eagerly anticipated vacation and reunion had truly begun badly, and
it was with a sense of relief that Donald finished the simple dinner,
and announced that he guessed he would go for a little tramp in the
woods, while Rose w