In the hospital she found Tom Stevens and saw that everything possible was done for him. He did not know her, but he told her of a beautiful girl far away in Maine whom he loved, but who cared nothing for him. Her eyes were red from unshed tears when she left him.
That evening Frank called on Hilda. He brought Jack Diamond along, and the Virginian was afterward forced to confess that the girl from Maine was as charming in her manners and conversation as she had appeared when he first saw her on Twenty-third Street.
“Yes,” Jack told himself, “she is much like Juliet, only she lacks a certain refinement Juliet possesses.”
At the same time Frank was thinking:
“How much like Inza she is! I don’t think I ever noticed it before; but she lacks a certain subtle charm that Inza possesses—something that seems to belong to Inza alone.”
And Hilda was thinking:
“Jack Diamond is handsome, but he cannot compare with Frank Merriwell. Frank is the handsomest fellow in all the world, and in the future, as in the past, he’ll always be my hero.”
CHAPTER XIV
FRANK’S INFLUENCE.
“Drop it!”