Just now I am pressed for time." "I ought to have gone down there with them," she confessed.

"But it seemed that I couldn't get away.

Frank, you don't know what angels of mercy those girls have been! Elsie found out that Mrs.Moran was starving and dying by inches for lack of proper food and medicines, and since then she and Inza have been down there every day, and often two or three times a day." "I trust they don't venture after nightfall!" Frank was thinking of a fight Jack Ready had while rescuing Elsie from the drunken ruffian, Jim Haskins.
Then he thanked Winnie for her invitation, said good-by, and hurried away to catch the first car going in the direction which he wished to take.
"I hope Badger is entirely worthy of her," he thought, his mind on Winnie Lee.

"She is a fine girl, and if he gets her he will get a prize.
Now, if they don't pass me, coming back in another car! Winnie hasn't the least idea that Buck was intoxicated when he went aboard the _Crested Foam_, and she shall never know it from me!" Neither of the girls heard Merriwell's gentle rap on Mrs.Moran's door, and he pushed into the house without further ceremony, feeling sure that they were busy in caring for the old lady or that her condition was such that they could not leave her.

Then, looking through the doorway at the right of the corridor, his gaze fell on a pleasant sight.
The girls were seated by the bed, Elsie holding one of Mrs.Moran's wasted hands in her own warm palms, while Inza was reading to the old woman from a little copy of the New Testament.
Merriwell stopped for a moment, for his entrance had been unnoticed.
Somehow, the pathos of the scene inexpressibly touched him.
"They are angels of mercy, just as Winnie said!" was his thought.
Inza had an excellent reading voice, as pure and liquid as falling water.