e benefit of your
fresher eye."

"About Bessy?" Justine hesitated, letting her glance drift to the
distant group still anchored about the tennis-nets. "Don't you find her
looking better?"

"Than when I left? So much so that I was unduly disturbed, just now, by
seeing that clever little doctor--it _was_ he, wasn't it, who came up
the lawn with you?"

"Dr. Wyant? Yes." Miss Brent hesitated again. "But he merely
called--with a message."

"Not professionally? _Tant mieux!_ The truth is, I was anxious about
Bessy when I left--I thought she ought to have gone abroad for a change.
But, as it turns out, her little excursion with you did as well."

"I think she only needed rest. Perhaps her six weeks in the Adirondacks
were better than Europe."

"Ah, under _your_ care--that made them better!" Mrs. Ansell in turn
hesitated, the lines of her face melting and changing as if a rapid
stage-hand had shifted them. When she spoke again they were as open as a
public square, but also as destitute of personal significance, as flat
and smooth as the painted drop before the real scene it hides.

"I have always thought that Bessy, for all her health and activity,
needs as much care as Cicely--the kind of care a clever friend can give.
She is so wasteful of her strength and her nerves, and so unwilling to
listen to reason. Poor Dick Westmore watched over her as if she were a
baby; but perhaps Mr. Amherst, who must have been used to such a
different type of woman, doesn't realize...and then he's so little
here...." The drop was lit up by a smile that seemed to make it more
impenetrable. "As an old friend I can't help telling you how much I hope
she is to have you with her for a long time--a long, long time."

Miss Brent bent her head in slight acknowledgment of the tribute. "Oh,
soon she will not need any care----"

"My dear Miss Brent, she will always need it!" Mrs. Ansell made a
movement inviting the young girl to share the bench from which, at the
latter's approach, she had risen. "But perhaps there is not enough in
such a life to satisfy your professional energies."

She seated herself, and after an imperceptible pause Justine sank into
the seat beside her. "I am very glad, just now, to give my energies a
holiday," she said, leaning back with a little sigh of retrospective
weariness.

"You are tired too? Bessy wrote me you had been quite used up by a
trying case after we saw you at Hanaford."

Miss Brent smiled. "When a nurs