bed in the morning," confessed
Hand.

"Oh, she does, does she!" jeered Jimmy. "Well, you'll have to go to
bed at night, like other folks, now. And then what'll you do?"

"I guess Miss Sallie'll have to sit up nights," modestly suggested
Hand, when a slipper struck him in the back. "Good shot! What d'you
want now--an opera hat?" he inquired derisively.

"Andy!" ejaculated Jim, dismay settling on his features. "I've just
thought! Do you s'pose I'm paying hotel bills all this time at The
Larue?"

Hand grinned unsympathetically. "If you engaged a room, sir, and
didn't give it up, I believe it's the custom--"

"That'll do for now, Handy Andy, if you can't get up any better answer
than that. Lord, what's that!" Jim suddenly exclaimed, as if he hadn't
been waiting, all ears, for that very step in the passage.

"I guess likely that'll be Miss Redmond," replied the respectful Hand.
And so it was.

Agatha, fresh as the morning, stood in the doorway for a contemplative
moment, before coming forward to take Jim's outstretched hand.

"Samson--shorn!" she exclaimed gaily. "I hardly know you, all fixed up
like this."

"Oh, I look much better than this when I'm really dressed up, you
know," Jim asserted. Agatha patted his knuckles indulgently, looked at
the thinness and whiteness of the hand, and shook her head.

"Not gaining enough yet," she said. "That isn't the right color for a
hand."

"It needs to be held longer."

"Oh, no, it needs more quiet. Fewer visitors, no talking, and plenty
of fresh milk and eggs."

Jimmy almost stamped his foot. "Down with eggs!" he cried. "And milk,
too. I'm going to institute a mutiny. Excuse me, I know I'm visiting
and ought to be polite, but no more invalid's food for me. Handy Andy
and I are going out to kill a moose and eat it--eh, Andy?"

But Hand was gone. Agatha sat down in a big rocker at the other
window. "In that case," she said demurely, "we'll all have to be
thinking of Lynn and New York and work."

Jim shamelessly turned feather. "Oh, no," he cried. "I'm very ill.
I'm not able to go to Lynn. Besides, my time isn't up yet. This is my
vacation."

He looked up smiling into Agatha's face, ingenuous as a boy of seven.

"Do you always take such--such venturesome holidays?" she asked.

"I never took any before; at least, not what I call holidays," he said.
"If you don't come over here and sit near me, I shall get up and go
over to you. And Andy say