doctors say it's different with your father.

"And just as soon as John Bray can ride in a railroad car, I am going to
see that he joins you at Hillcrest."

"Bully!" cried 'Phemie, the optimistic. "Oh, Lyddy! he's bound to get well
up here." For this chanced to be a very beautiful spring day and the girls
were more than ever enamored of the situation.

"I am not so sure," said Lyddy, slowly.

"Don't be a grump!" commanded her sister. "He's just _got_ to get well
up here." But Lyddy wondered afterward if 'Phemie believed what she said
herself!

They finished cleaning thoroughly the two rooms they were at present
occupying and began on the chambers above. Dust and the hateful spiderwebs
certainly had collected in the years the house had been unoccupied; but
the Bray girls were not afraid of hard work. Indeed, they enjoyed it.

Toward evening Lucas and his sister appeared, and the former set to work
to repair the old pump on the porch, while Sairy sat down to "visit" with
the girls of Hillcrest Farm.

"It's goin' to be nice havin' you here, I declare," said Miss Pritchett,
who had arranged two curls on either side of her forehead, which shook
in a very kittenish manner when she laughed and bridled.

"I guess, as maw says, I'm too much with old folks. Fust I know they'll
be puttin' me away in the Home for Indignant Old Maids over there to
Adams--though why 'indignant' I can't for the life of me guess, 'nless
it's because they're indignant over the men's passin' of 'em by!" and
Miss Pritchett giggled and shook her curls, to 'Phemie's vast amusement.

Indeed, the younger Bray girl confessed to her sister, after the visitors
had gone, that Sairy was more fun than Lucas.

"But I'm afraid she's far on the way to the Home for Indigent Spinsters,
and doesn't know it," chuckled 'Phemie. "What a freak she is!"

"That's what you called Lucas--at first," admonished Lyddy. "And they're
both real kind. Lucas wouldn't take a cent for mending the pump, and
Sairy came especially to invite us to the Temperance Club meeting, at
the schoolhouse Saturday night, and to go to church in their carriage
with her and her mother on Sunday."

"Yes; I suppose they _are_ kind," admitted 'Phemie. "And they can't help
being funny."

"Besides," said the wise Lyddy, "if we _do_ try to take boarders we'll
need Lucas's help. We'll have to hire him to go back and forth to town
for us, and depend on him for the outside chores. Why! we'd be like t