"I had to come out—I'm going back early, so don't be frightened," said Hester. "I saw in the paper an account of Bruce Rutherford's splendid act, and that your cousin was burned out, and I couldn't rest one more day without finding out for myself how bad everything was."
"Pretty bad," said Rob, raising her voice slightly to be sure it reached Bruce on the dining-room couch. "We have Bruce here, being nursed by Basil, and bothering the Greys,—tended by everybody. Cousin Peace is here, of course. And we have adopted a child, more or less—more or less adopted, I mean; not more or less a child. Altogether this has been an eventful week for us."
"It certainly sounds so!" cried Hester, looking at Rob hard, not knowing whether to take her seriously.
"You go into the dining-room; Basil and Wythie and Prue and France are there, burning incense around our martyred Bruce—as though he hadn't had enough of burning! I'll open the door for the doctor, who is tying his horse, and follow you," said Rob. She came in, bringing Dr. Fairbairn, whose six feet two of height, and proportionate bulk always seemed to fill up the little grey house in every crevice.
"Is this a bee?" demanded the doctor as he entered, pulling off his driving-gloves with a light chafing of each hand as he stripped it, and glancing around at the five girls.
"Two B's, doctor; two thirds of Battalion B, but there's no chance for anything but the busiest sort of idleness in this house, since Bruce took possession of it, with his wounded hands,—to drop into a poetical strain," said Rob.
"Dr. Fairbairn is going to let me decamp on Monday, aren't you, doctor?" hinted Bruce.
"If you will promise to take proper care of yourself. One would suppose he might be reasonably contented here, now wouldn't he?" added the doctor, looking around the pleasant room.
"Oh, well, I may be a B, but I don't want to be a drone," said Bruce. "I can take lectures with my bandages on. A little too long of this halcyon weather and I'd be good for nothing, smothered in honey, like an unworthy B." And Bruce's eyes rested lovingly on the Grey mother that moment entering.
Hester had been looking so preoccupied all this time that Wythie noticed it.