"Miss Perry tells me you've had another splendid night." He made a sound of irony, which seemed to dispose unfavourably of Miss Perry, and then, in order to be more certainly intelligible, he added, "She slept well, as usual!" But his wife's smile persisted.

"It's a good sign to be cross; it means you're practically convalescent right now." "Oh, I am, am I ?" "No doubt in the world!" she exclaimed.

"Why, you're practically a well man, Virgil--all except getting your strength back, of course, and that isn't going to take long.

You'll be right on your feet in a couple of weeks from now." "Oh, I will ?" "Of course you will!" She laughed briskly, and, going to the table in the center of the room, moved his glass of medicine an inch or two, turned a book over so that it lay upon its other side, and for a few moments occupied herself with similar futilities, having taken on the air of a person who makes things neat, though she produced no such actual effect upon them.

"Of course you will," she repeated, absently.
"You'll be as strong as you ever were; maybe stronger." She paused for a moment, not looking at him, then added, cheerfully, "So that you can fly around and find something really good to get into." Something important between them came near the surface here, for though she spoke with what seemed but a casual cheerfulness, there was a little betraying break in her voice, a trembling just perceptible in the utterance of the final word.