“But who is he?” inquired Gretta in dismay.
“He’s a Mr. Courtney—so he said. And he said, too, ‘Ask Miss Margaret Grey if I can speak to her for a minute; she’ll p’rhaps have heard my name from Mrs. Fleming!’”
“It’s Long Jake!” cried Gretta in amazement, her cheeks turned pink, and she rushed downstairs, shyness forgotten; while mystification as to why the visitor had come was swallowed up in a feeling of excitement and delight that at last she was to see her school hero face to face!
An hour later it was a very energetic Gretta who was putting finishing touches to a dainty tea-tray set for two, and destined for the sick-room. Upstairs, from the said room, came the sound of cheerful voices—the doctor was evidently enjoying the company of his visitor. Gretta’s face dimpled with smiles as his laugh rang out in appreciation of some story. “Margot said Long Jake always came in the nick of time,” she thought to herself; “and it’s true—he does!”
For Mr. Courtney, in explaining to the girl the reason of his unexpected appearance, had told her of Mrs. Fleming’s suggestion that he would probably be welcome at the doctor’s house if he could make time to drop in there. “Of course, I’ll go straight away,” he explained to Gretta, as she came into the drawing-room to greet him, “if you think that your father’s not well enough for visitors; but I’m going back to Australia in a few weeks’ time, you know, as I’ve nothing to keep me in England any longer; and, if I could be of any use meanwhile——”
“I believe you’re just the very person!” Gretta said, as emphatically as her shyness of the stranger—who was not really a stranger at all—would allow. “Dad does need cheering up so badly, and you see he knows all about you. The ‘Little House,’ and the——” She stopped, thinking that perhaps she had said too much.
The visitor looked rather embarrassed. “Well, that’s over now,” he said quietly, after a minute. “The poor old chap who lived there has nothing more to worry about any longer.” Then, with a sudden and boyish change of tone, “Look here, Miss Gretta, suppose you ask your father if he’d like to see me?”
In five minutes he had been in the doctor’s room, and that was an hour ago, now; the girl felt as though her nursing duties were halved, to say the least of it, as she carried the tea-tray up the stairs, and knocked at the door of the sick-room.
“Here’s Gretta,” said the patient, in the voice of a rapidly recovering convalescent. “Why, Courtney, you’re a doctor yourself, man. I’ve not felt so glad to see a meal for a month or more.”