ly and eagerly, during her hours
of freedom, was the only unalloyed joy of his present existence. Even
Toky hailed her appearances now with frank pleasure, for she, and she
alone, brought the rare, sweet smile to the master's face and gave a
meaning to the artistic meals that were planned.

"I think, my Butterfly," Boswell often said to her, "that you have soared
to glory through suffering and gore! But it is the soaring and the glory
that matter, after all. Do not lay it up against your poor Beetle if he
makes a wry face now and then. You are desperately dramatic, you know,
but even in my shudders I do not lose sight of the fact that you are a
very triumphant Butterfly."

Priscilla beamed upon him; the new light of well-poised serenity did not
escape him.

"If I could only explain!" she once said to him as they sat facing each
other across the table that Toky had laid so artistically. "When I feel
the deepest my words seem shut in a cage; only a few get through the
bars. I really believe people all feel the same about their little
victories. It isn't the kind of victory; it is the sure realization that
you are doing _your_ work--the work you can do best. Why, sometimes I
feel as if I were the big All Mother, and the sad, helpless, suffering
folk were _my_ dear children just looking to me--to me! And then I try
to take the pain and fear from their faces by all the arts my profession
has taught me and all the--the _something_ that is in me, and--I tell
you----"

Priscilla paused, while the shining light in her big eyes was brightened,
rather than lessened, by the tears that gathered, then retreated.

"And for all this," Boswell broke in, "you are to get twenty-five per, or
for a particular case, thirty-five per?"

They smiled broadly at each other, for their one huge, compelling joke
loomed close.

"Well, sir, when one considers what two intelligent people, like you and
me, did with Master Farwell's one hundred dollars, the future looks
wonderfully rich! I shall soon be able to repay the loan with interest."

And then they talked a bit of Master Farwell and the In-Place, always
skirting the depths gracefully, for Boswell never permitted certain
subjects to escape his control. It was the half-playful, but wholly
kind dignity that had won for him Priscilla's faith and dependence.

For a week or two after Gordon Moffatt's operation things went calmly and
prosaically at the hospital. The rich man recovered so rapid