system I may be able to snatch a little sleep, and I must sleep. I have an important engagement to-morrow at three.
It occurred at four o'clock this afternoon. I had bought a bunch of primroses from a man on the street five minutes before. I was on my way home from a shopping tour, and with my pretty early-spring flowers tucked in at my waist, and my hands full of packages, I turned up Charles Street as unconcerned as you please. At the corner I bowed to our minister's wife, and the remains of the smile were still on my face, I suppose, when I saw Dr. Maynard. I didn't know that he was on this side of the ocean, and when I observed him coming down the steps of the postoffice—vigorous and strong and buoyant—I stood still in my tracks, and the remains of the smile turned into something startled and afraid. Dr. Maynard approached me all aglow, stretched out his hand and took mine in a warm, firm grasp. A thrill went through me like a knife. He was as natural as day, beautifully tanned, smiling, big, broad-shouldered as ever, and yet different—oh, awfully different.
"Hello, Bobbie," he said in his hearty old voice, and I looked back at him, perfectly white—I could feel that I was—and speechless. "Don't be a goose. It's just Dr. Maynard," I tried to reason with myself.
"Am I speaking to Miss Lucy Vars?" I heard asked of me. "Miss Lucy Chenery Vars, of 240 Main Street, Hilton, Mass.?"
I nodded, and somewhere down there in the chaos in my chest, I found my poor little voice. "Is it you?" I asked shakily.
