d that
it seemed best to give her her way, particularly as she did not seem so
well to-day. And in his disappointment over these tidings, the doctor
presently forgot the desk entirely.

However, Kern's note arrived in the office an hour later, through the
Kindness of Miss Masters, as the envelope advised. Mr. V.V. suspended a
sentence to one of his sick in the middle to read it:

MY DEAR DR. VIVIAN:

Oh, Mr. V.V., how can I ever thank you for given me this
lovely Writen Desk. I greatly appreciate your kind gift. Just
putten my hands on it makes me so happy, I could cry, oh the
soft feel this Pretty wood has got to it.

Your kind thought of me at this time has indeed pleased me.
One is never so appreciative of the thought of one's friends,
if I can call you my Friend, Mr. V.V., as when one lies in
pain upon a sickbed, th'o I have no pain. It's the lovlyest
sweetest dearest Desk ever was Mr. V.V., and how can me and
Mommer ever make up for all you done for us. I don't know. I
have every hope for a speedy change for the better in my
condition, and I never dreamed Id' have a Ladys Writen Desk
truly, or haven one would make me oh so Happy. My first note,
dear Dr. Vivian, goes to you.

With repeated thanks for your considerate thought of me
during my illness, believe me, with kind remembrances,

Yours very cordially,

Your faithful friend CORINNE.

The young man distributed mental italics as he read. He detected at
sight the footprints of the Netiquette and Complete Letter Writer. But
he did not smile once as he read and reread the odd little mosaic, and
folded it at last and put it away in a pigeonhole of its own. No, his
stabbing thought was only, Why didn't I do it all long ago?... Why?...

And similar things he thought next morning, and the next and next. For
Kern did not get well, no matter what the calendar said, no matter how
loyally Writing-Desk stood at her elbow to serve her, as It had said in
the Note. Her morning temperature shot up a degree again, and there it
stood day after day, and would not go down. Kern obviously grew thinner
and weaker. And there came a day when the President of the Settlement
Association, Mr. Stewart Byrd, came in person to the Dabney House before
ten o'clock, and sent all the workmen away. He said there must be no
noise about the place that day....

That relapse passed, but no one c