When the busy doctor, detained longer than he had expected to be, returned for his sister, she was nowhere in sight, and Peace lay fast asleep in her wheel-chair by the window.
"Guess Kit got tired of waiting for me and went home," he mused. So he hurried down the stairway and was about to step out of the great front doors, when a familiar, ringing laugh from the office close by made him pause and open his eyes in wonder, as he ejaculated under his breath, "If that isn't Kit, I'll eat my hat!"
Before he could retrace his steps, however, a flushed, radiant figure flashed into the hallway, and Keturah—a rejuvenated Kit with a crimson carnation in her belt and another tucked in the coils of her glossy hair—exclaimed, "O, Dick, come see what this little rogue has done!"
Then he noticed what had escaped his attention before,—she was leading little lame Billy Bolee by the hand. Puzzled, yet strangely relieved at the vision, the doctor followed her into the office, where she pointed at scores of little red and green patches plastered hit or miss on the smooth walls.
"Why, what—?" he began.
"See what they are?" asked the amused sister.
He looked more closely at the haphazard decorations, then exclaimed, "Postage stamps, I'll be bound!"
"Yes. Five dollars' worth," laughed Keturah infectiously. "And the worst of it is, most of them will have to be soaked off with water. Billy Bolee did his job well. Do you suppose the mucilage will make him sick? By the way, Dickson, I am going to take Billy home with me. It won't be too cool in the auto for him without any wraps, will it? He has nothing but a heavy winter coat, and he will roast in that."
Slowly the doctor turned and looked searchingly at his sister. She flushed under his gaze, but did not flinch.