the faith will spread. Only
wait till we have made a few old people young--for that will come, too,
with the new surgery."

"You will be glad," said Barbara, "to hear that I have severed friendly
relations with Mr. Blizzard. He behaved in the end pretty much as you
all feared he would."

And she told her father, briefly, and somewhat shamefacedly, all that
had happened in the studio.

"He thought I was laughing at him," she said. "Of course I wasn't. And
he came at me. Do you remember when poor old Rose went mad, and tried to
get at us through the bars of the kennel? Blizzard looked like
that--like a mad dog." She shuddered.

The surgeon's high spirits were dashed as with cold water.

"He ought not to be helped," said Barbara; "he ought to be shot, as Rose
was."

But Dr. Ferris shook his head gravely. "If he is that sort of a man," he
said, "who made him so? Who took the joy of life from him? Barbara, my
dear, there is nothing that man could do that I couldn't forgive."

"And I think that your conscience is sick," said Barbara. "I used to
think as you think. But if you had seen his face that day!... The one
great mistake you have made has ruined not his life, but yours. If he
had had the right stuff in him, calamity would not have broken him! It
would have _made_ him. Give him a new pair of legs, if you can; and
forget about him, as I shall. When you first told me about him, I
thought we owed him anything he chose to ask. At one time I thought that
if he wished it, it would be right for me to marry him."

"Barbara!"

"Yes, I did--I thought it strongly. Shows what a fool a girl who's
naturally foolish can make of herself! Why, father, what if he has
suffered through your mistake? That mistake turned your thoughts to the
new surgery--and for the one miserable man that you have hurt you will
have given the wonder of hope to the whole of mankind."

She slid her hand under her father's arm.

"Let's potter 'round the gardens," she said, "and forget our troubles.
It's bully to have you back. There's not much doing in the floral line.
The summer sun in Westchester doesn't vary from year to year. But there
are lots of green things that smell good, and the asters and dahlias are
making the most extraordinary promises of what they are going to do
by and by."

They passed out of the house and by marble steps into the first and most
formal of their many gardens, and so down through the other gardens,
terrace below te