lution about some of the great
stratagems they wanted him to execute for them with his regiment,
which was a very fine one. They hope that they're worth much more than
any thousand dollars, and they are to be the price of Lovelace
Peyton's eyes. The Idol has written about them and he hopes to get the
money immediately by telegraph, and send for the doctor the first of
next week. That is, if God doesn't let me get my telegram before
theirs. He is going to, my faith makes me believe.

And Oh! I do want my composition to be printed so the world may know
what a good man my father could be, if he would just give up his
thirst for money. It may keep other young men from following in his
footsteps, instead of doing like Judge Luttrell and other Byrdsville
men.

"Of course, Phyllis, it is an awful thing to give up a part of your
inheritance like those papers are, but then Lovey's eyes are still
more valuable to the Byrd family," Roxanne said, as we were discussing
the sacrifice. "He is going to be such a great doctor that he will
make history himself and, of course, we will have copies of the
originals; and when people are writing Douglass's and Lovey's
biographies they can go and see the originals. And after the
eye-doctor is paid, we will have a lot left over for this new thing
Douglass is inventing. He just told me about it last night, and I can
tell you now."

"Don't tell me, Roxanne, don't!" I interrupted her quickly. The blood
dyed my face so red that I felt as if I could wipe it off with my
handkerchief, if I tried.

And Roxanne, instead of blushing, got pale and put her arm around my
neck. Real love always has the right thing to say at the right time.

"Phyllis," she whispered in a tickling fashion right against my ear,
"when Douglass told me about it last night he came back in my room to
say, 'Don't tell a single soul but Phyllis.'"

If some accident should happen to make me famous, I wish the person
that writes my biography could put down how I felt when Roxanne
whispered that to me. I choked a little bit and Roxanne hugged the
choke and was just beginning to tell me about the experiment when
Lovelace Peyton called us to come to him.

He is dreadfully spoiled since he has had to keep so still all the
time, but we try to do just as he says. He lies there in bed and
thinks up all the impossible things that might be done and then asks
us to do them. He longed so for "squirms" that Tony got a wooden box
and made