lf
and get well.

"Land sakes!" she exclaimed, "there was a time when I thought you never
was goin' to get well. Hour after hour I've set here and listened
to your gabblin' away about everything under the sun and nothin' in
particular, as crazy as a kitten in a patch of catnip, and thought and
thought, what should I do, what SHOULD I do. And now I KNOW what I'm
goin' to do. I'm goin' to keep you in that bed till you're strong and
well enough to get out of it, if I have to sit on you to hold you down.
And I'm no hummin'-bird when it comes to perchin', either."

She had received the telegram which Frances sent and had come from
Interlaken post haste.

"And I don't know," she declared, "which part of that telegram upset me
most--what there was in it or the name signed at the bottom of it. HER
name! I couldn't believe my eyes. I didn't stop to believe 'em long. I
just came. And then I found you like this."

"Was she here?" I asked.

"Who--Frances! My, yes, she was here. So pale and tired lookin' that I
thought she was goin' to collapse. But she wouldn't give in to it.
She told me all about how it happened and what the doctor said and
everything. I didn't pay much attention to it then. All I could think of
was you. Oh, Hosy! my poor boy! I--I--"

"There! there!" I broke in, gently. "I'm all right now, or I'm going to
be. You will have the quahaug on your hands for a while longer. But,"
returning to the subject which interested me most, "what else did she
tell you? Did she tell you how I met her--and where?"

"Why, yes. She's singin' somewhere--she didn't say where exactly, but it
is in some kind of opera-house, I judged. There's a perfectly beautiful
opera-house a little ways from here on the Avenue de L'Opera, right by
the Boulevard des Italiens, though there's precious few Italians there,
far's I can see. And why an opera is a l'opera I--"

"Wait a moment, Hephzy. Did she tell you of our meeting? And how I found
her?"

"Why, not so dreadful much, Hosy. She's acted kind of queer about that,
seemed to me. She said you went to this opera-house, wherever it was,
and saw her there. Then you and she were crossin' the road and one of
these dreadful French automobiles--the way they let the things tear
round is a disgrace--ran into you. I declare! It almost made ME sick
to hear about it. And to think of me away off amongst those mountains,
enjoyin' myself and not knowin' a thing! Oh, it makes me ashamed to look
in the g