never realized you were tall, lying down, somehow!"

"I don't have to bend very far to kiss you, though," suggested Allan,
suiting the action to the word.

But Phyllis, when this was satisfactorily concluded, went back to the
great business of seeing how much Allan could walk. He sat down again
after a half-dozen steps, a little tired in spite of his excitement.

"I can't do much at a time yet, I suppose," he said a little ruefully.
"Do you mean to tell me, sweetheart--come over here closer, where I can
touch you--you're awfully far away--do you mean to tell me that all that
ailed me was I thought I couldn't move?"

"Oh, no!" explained Phyllis, moving her chair close, and then, as that
did not seem satisfactory, perching on the arm of Allan's. "You'd been
unable to move for so long that when you were able to at last your
subconscious mind clamped down on your muscles and was convinced you
couldn't. So no matter how much you consciously tried, you couldn't make
the muscles go till you were so strongly excited it broke the
inhibition--just as people can lift things in delirium or excitement
that they couldn't possibly move at other times. Do you see?"

"I do," said Allan, kissing the back of her neck irrelevantly. "If
somebody'd tried to shoot me up five years ago I might be a well man
now. That's a beautiful word of yours, Phyllis, inhibition. What a lot
of big words you know!"

"Oh, if you won't be serious!" said she.

"We'll have to be," said Allan, laughing, "for here's Wallis, and, as I
live, from the direction of the house. I thought they carried our friend
the tramp out through the hedge--he must have gone all the way around."

Phyllis was secretly certain that Wallis had been crying a little, but
all he said was, "We've taken the tramp to the lock-up, sir."

But his master and his mistress were not so dignified. They showed him
exhaustively that Allan could really stand and walk, and Allan
demonstrated it, and Wallis nearly cried again. Then they went in, for
Phyllis was sure Allan needed a thorough rest after all this. She was
shaking from head to foot herself with joyful excitement, but she did
not even know it. And it was long past dinner-time, though every one but
Lily-Anna, to whom the happy news had somehow filtered, had forgotten
it.

"I've always wanted to hold you in my arms, this way," said Allan late
that evening, as they stood in the rose-garden again; "but I thought I
never would.... Phylli