“I should like to carry that jelly off with me; it fairly makes my mouth water. If you’ll give it to me, my dear, I will allow your father to eat an unlimited amount of it later on; and then think how busy you will be! Come, is it a bargain?”
“Dr. Ware! As if you need ask! Why, you know I’d just love to give it to you.”
She had arranged the jelly in a dainty dish, and now ran into the dining-room for a doily, which she wrapped about it.
“Won’t you let us send it over to you, Dr. Ware?” Julie asked.
“No, thank you, Julie; I’m going to drive right home,” and the Doctor went off with the dish in his hand.
When he reappeared that evening he astonished the girls by approaching them silently, while he bowed with great ceremony before Hester, to whom he held out a package and said: “Allow me to congratulate you, my dear.”
Greatly mystified, Hester took the package and unwrapped it, to find the glass jelly dish she had given him that morning, in the bottom of which lay a two-dollar bill. She looked up at him wonderingly.
“It is yours, Hester,” he said. “I plead guilty. I took that jelly to a crotchety old patient of mine who is boarding, and reviles all the jelly his nurse buys for him. I told him I thought I had found some that would please him, and I was right. He devoured half of it while I was there. Then he insisted on paying for it. I did not tell him where it came from, but he wants some more, and he said that was what it was worth.” He was watching her closely.
She had taken up the bill, and was handling it nervously, a deep flush on her bewildered young face. “Julie,” she exclaimed, breathlessly, turning instinctively to her sister, “Julie, I’ve earned some money!”
“How splendid!” Julie stared at the bill as if it were different from any she had seen before. Hester threw her arms impulsively around Dr. Ware’s neck. “This is the only way I know how to thank you,” she cried.