with a net, anyhow?"

"You are very disagreeable and--and impertinent," said Jane,
sliding off the table.

"It isn't disagreeable to tell a girl she has pretty hair," the
red-haired person protested--"or impertinent either."

Jane was gathering up the remnants of her temper, scattered by the
events of the day.

"You said I was a neurasthenic," she accused him. "It--it isn't
being a neurasthenic to be nervous and upset and hating the very
sight of people, is it?"

"Bless my soul!" said the red-haired man. "Then what is it?" Jane
flushed, but he went on tactlessly: "I give you my word, I think you
are the most perfectly"--he gave every appearance of being about to
say "beautiful," but he evidently changed his mind--"the most
perfectly healthy person I have ever looked at," he finished.

It is difficult to say just what Jane would have done under other
circumstances, but just as she was getting her temper really in hand
and preparing to launch something, shuffling footsteps were heard in
the hall and Higgins stood in the doorway.

He was in a sad state. One of his eyes was entirely closed, and the
corresponding ear stood out large and bulbous from his head. Also he
was coated with mud, and he was carefully nursing one hand with the
other.

He said he had been met at the near end of the railroad bridge by
the ex-furnace man and one of the ex-orderlies and sent back firmly,
having in fact been kicked back part of the way. He'd been told to
report at the hospital that the tradespeople had instituted a
boycott, and that either the former superintendent went back or the
entire place could starve to death.

It was then that Jane discovered that her much-vaunted temper was
not one-two-three to that of the red-haired person. He turned a sort
of blue-white, shoved Jane out of his way as if she had been a
chair, and she heard him clatter down the stairs and slam out of the
front door.

Jane went back to her room and looked down the drive. He was running
toward the bridge, and the sunlight on his red hair and his flying
legs made him look like a revengeful meteor. Jane was weak in the
knees. She knelt on the cold radiator and watched him out of sight,
and then got trembly all over and fell to snivelling. This was of
course because, if anything happened to him, she would be left
entirely alone. And anyhow the D.T. case was singing again and had
rather got on her nerves.

In ten minutes the red-haired person appeared. H