desirable thing. Mrs. Fields says there's nothing Doctor Churchill can't
do in the way of repairing; and when I told that to Uncle Ray he said
that all good surgeons needed to be born mechanics, and usually were.
And even though Lanse makes a lawyer, like father, he may need to get
out of the automobile he'll have some day, and crawl under it and make
it over inside before he can go on."

Celia laughed, and went to call the rest of the family from their beds,
early hours having now perforce become the habit of the Birch family.

It was some three hours later that Charlotte sat down for a moment to
rest on the little vine-covered back porch. The breakfast work and the
bed-making were over, the kitchen was in order, and there was time to
draw breath before plunging into the next set of duties.

Celia had gone up-stairs to some summer sewing she had on hand; Captain
Rayburn had taken the baby around the corner to a pretty park, where the
two spent long hours now, in the perfect June weather; the boys were at
school, and the house was very still.

Charlotte stretched her arms above her head, drawing a long breath.

"How long ago it seems that I was free after breakfast to do what I
wanted to!" she said to herself. "And how little I realised all the
cares that were always on mother! Oh, if it were only time for them to
come back--this day--this hour--this minute! I wouldn't mind the work
now, if they were only here."

The girl's gaze, fixed wistfully on the leafy treetops above her,
suddenly dropped to earth. A man's figure was stumbling along the little
path which led diagonally from the back of the Birch premises through a
gateway and off toward a back street, the route by which Lanse was
accustomed to take an inconspicuous short cut toward the locomotive
shops, by the river.

For an instant, only the similarity of the figure to Lanse's struck her,
for the wavering walk and bandaged head, with hand pressed to the
forehead, did not suggest her brother. At the next instant the man
lifted a white face, and Charlotte gave a startled cry as she saw that
it was John Lansing himself, in a sorry plight.

She ran to him. His head was clumsily tied up in a soiled cloth, which
the blood was beginning to stain. As she put her arm about him he smiled
wanly down at her, murmuring, "Thought I couldn't make it--glad I have.
No--not the house--Doctor's office. Don't want to scare Celia. It's
nothing."

It might be nothing, but he