h, Dr. Blair, she saved the baby! Put him down in that scalding water
and held him right there with her hands, and she's burned herself
something terrible, but she saved him! I never saw a braver----"

"Let me see."

The doctor examined the baby with professional gravity and then looked
up.

"I should say you did save him, young woman! I couldn't have done better
for him myself! Now let me have a look at those arms of yours."

After he had bandaged her blisters the woman prepared food and coffee
for them all and then took Lou upstairs with her, while Jim dried his
soaking clothes by the kitchen fire and the three men talked in a
desultory way of the topics of the countryside.

Dr. Blair had just ascertained that Jim and his "sister" were strangers,
traveling toward New York, and had offered to drive them both to the
trolley line in his little car, when the woman of the house reappeared
with Lou, and Jim stared with all his eyes.

Could this be the little scarecrow of a girl he had met on the road only
five days before; this unbelievably tall, slender young woman in the
dark blue silk gown with filmy ruffles falling about her neck and
wrists, and soft puffs of blond hair over her ears?

"It's me, though I kin hardly believe it myself!" Lou answered his
unspoken thought. Then drawing him aside she added: "Mis' Tooker--that's
her name--gave me a pair of shoes, too, an' a hat an' five whole
dollars! Are we goin' to a place called Pelton?"

Jim nodded.

"That is where I hoped we would be by to-night, but it must be at least
twelve miles away."

"Well, Mis' Tooker says the trolley goes right into Pelton, and she gave
me a letter to a friend of hers there who'll take us in for the
night----"

The doctor interrupted with an intimation of another patient to be
visited, and they bade farewell to the grateful young couple and started
away. The sun was still high, and save for the mud which splashed up
with each turn of the wheels, all traces of the storm had vanished.

"Jennie Tooker always was a fool!" Dr. Blair grumbled. "How many babies
have you taken care of, young woman?"

"More'n twenty, I guess, off an' on," Lou responded. "I--I used to work
in an institootion up-State."

Fearing further revelations, Jim hastily took a hand in the
conversation, and he and the doctor chatted until the trolley line was
reached. There, when they had descended from the little car Lou turned
to Jim and asked a trifle shyly: