As the telegraph company remained indifferent, I could see that no harm was done.

For at last came a bulletin of seventeen words which left us assured that Little Miss had conquered.

Henceforth we could receive the things without that stifling dread, that eager fearfulness of the eyes to read all the words in one glance.

Leisurely could we learn that Little Miss was getting back her strength, and Miss Caroline and I could laugh at Clem's fear that she also would find herself "pah'lyzed in th' frame." After that Miss Caroline and I were free to consider another matter, weighty enough with pneumonia out of the running.

This was a matter of ways and means--of sheer, downright money.
When Clem, in the first days of his sickness, had warned Miss Caroline that she would not be let to waste "all that gold money," his lofty reference, as a matter of cold figures, was to a sum less than nine dollars.