ent to sufferings
of earth, was high up in a clear sky. The new-washed air was cool and
sparkling as a tonic. Missy's physical being felt more refreshed than
she cared to admit; for her turmoil of spirit had awakened with her, and
she felt her body should be in keeping.

By the time she got dressed and downstairs, Uncle Charlie had
breakfasted and was about to go down town. He said Aunt Isabel was still
in bed, but much better.

"She had no business to drink all those sodas," he said. "Her stomach
was already upset from all that ice-cream and cake the night before--and
the hot weather and all--"

Missy was scarcely listening to the last. One phrase had caught her ear:
"Her stomach upset!"--How could Uncle Charlie?

But when she went up to Aunt Isabel's room later, the latter reiterated
that unromantic diagnosis. But perhaps she was pretending. That would be
only natural.

Missy regarded the convalescent; she seemed quite cheerful now, though
wan. And not so lovely as she generally did. Missy couldn't forbear a
leading remark.

"I'm terribly sorry Mr. Saunders had to go away so soon." She strove for
sympathetic tone, but felt inexpert and self-conscious. "Terribly sorry.
I can't--"

And then, suddenly, Aunt Isabel laughed--laughed!--and said a surprising
thing.

"What! You, too, Missy? Oh, that's too funny!"

Missy stared--reproach, astonishment, bewilderment, contending in her
expression.

Aunt Isabel continued that delighted gurgle.

"Mr. Saunders is a notorious heart-breaker--but I didn't realize he was
capturing yours so speedily!"

Striving to keep her dignity, Missy perhaps made her tone more severe
than she intended.

"Well," she accused, "didn't he capture yours, Aunt Isabel?"

Then Aunt Isabel, still laughing a little, but with a serious shade
creeping into her eyes, reached out for one of Missy's hands and
smoothed it gently between her own.

"No, dear; I'm afraid your Uncle Charlie has that too securely tucked
away."

Something in Aunt Isabel's voice, her manner, her eyes, even more than
her words, convinced Missy that she was speaking the real truth. It was
all a kind of wild jumbled day-dream she'd been having. La Beale Aunt
Isabel wasn't in love with Mr. Saunders after all! She was in love
with Uncle Charlie. There had been no romantic undermeaning in all
that harp-ukelele business, in the flasket of ice-cream soda, in the
mysterious sickness. The sickness wasn't even mysterious any l