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166 early and the next day she begged and teased worse than ever; so now we don't give in at all. Mr. Guthrie will be here in five minutes, and then it won't be so bad. Without him Miss Elsie would go straight into hysterics, and the doctors say we mustn't allow that. If your brother should be two minutes late, we'd have to take those weights right off. With him here, though, the poor little creature seems to get new strength, somehow. It's queer."

At exactly on a quarter of the hour I heard a step on the stairs, a moment later Burr's big, reassuring voice calling through the hall, "Coming, Elsie!" And I saw him pass quickly into Elsie's room.

"Listen to him," said the nurse to me. "It's wonderful. He just goes up to her, takes her two hands in both his. That's all; and she stares up at him out of those eyes of hers, and he talks to her—off and on. Each time just about the same, for fifteen minutes solid; about how much nerve and grit he thinks she's got; and how he admires her control and courage; and how he himself, until he played a game in football once with a broken rib, never knew what a real fight meant—and until she had those weights on she probably never guessed what qualities she had hidden away in her. You know she really isn't brave at all;