een all the news I want."

"Gracious!" Miss Patty said, and buried her head again. But he had
reached the shameless stage; a man who is really in love always seems to
get to that point sooner or later. He stooped and kissed the back of her
neck, and if his hand shook when he pushed in one of her shell hairpins
it was excitement and not fright.

"I hardly realize it, Minnie," he said. "I don't deserve her for a
minute."

"Certainly not," I said.

"He does." Miss Patty's voice smothered. Then she got up and came over
to me.

"There is going to be an awful fuss, Minnie," she said. "Think of Aunt
Honoria--and Oskar!"

"Let them fuss!" I said grandly. "If the worst comes, you can spend your
honeymoon in the shelter-house. I'm so used to carrying meals there now
that it's second nature."

And at that they both made for me, and as Mr. Pierce kissed me Doctor
Barnes opened the door. He stood for a moment, looking queer and wild,
and then he slammed the door and we heard him stamping down the steps.

Mr. Pierce had to bring him back.

Well, that's all there is to it. The place filled up and stayed filled,
but not under Mr. Pierce. Mr. Jennings said ability of his kind was
wasted there, once the place was running, and set him to building a
railroad somewhere or other, with him and Miss Patty living in a private
car, and he carrying a portable telephone with him so he can talk to her
every hour or so. Mr. Dick and his wife are running the sanatorium, or
think they are. Doctor Barnes is the whole place, really. Mr. Jennings
was so glad to have Miss Patty give up the prince and send him back
home, after he'd been a week in the hotel at Finleyville looking as if
his face would collapse if you stuck a pin in it--Mr. Jennings was so
happy, not to mention having worked off his gout at the wood-pile, that
he forgave the Dickys without any trouble, and even went out and had a
meal with them in the shelter-house before they moved in, with Mr. Dick
making the coffee.

I miss the spring, as I said at the beginning. It is hard to teach an
old dog new tricks, but with Miss Patty happy, and with Doctor Barnes
around--

Thoburn came out the afternoon before he left, just after the rest hour,
and showed me how much too loose his waistcoat had become.

"I've lost, Minnie," he confessed. "Lost fifteen pounds and the dream of
my life. But I've found something, too."

"What?"

"My waist line!" he said, and threw his chest out.

"