the hospital. I'll send a carriage and a nurse by twelve o'clock."

So do hours change outlooks. The last thing any one of the Lanes had expected to be doing at noon on that peaceful spring Sunday was to be standing in the vestibule of the Winona flats, watching the little sister being conveyed away, in the care of a nurse. But so it was.

"Don't look so blue, dears," Sally had murmured, as she left them. "I'll soon be back, you know."

"Heaven grant it!" ejaculated Uncle Timothy, in his heart. As for the others, they filed silently up stairs again, and into the empty room. It was full of all the things that had seemed to make it home—with Sally there. But somehow it looked empty now.

Nobody said much of anything unless it became necessary, but before bedtime four pregnant sentences had been uttered.

"That nurse looked as if she knew something," said Max, suddenly.

"There's not a man in the city equal to Wood," declared Alec.

"Seems as if she couldn't smile quite like that if she was going to be awfully sick," was Bob's contribution to the sum total of hopefulness.

But it was Uncle Timothy, as usual, who hit the nail on the head. "Boys," said he, "we can do our part—on our knees."

And, to a man, they nodded. Suddenly, they could not speak.