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 delighted. "Some day, if Mrs. McAllister is willing, you and I will ride over to my garden and pick it."

"And we'll bring it to Violet?" asked Benny, waiting breathlessly for an answer.

"We'll bring it to Violet," agreed Mr. Cordyce, resuming his shortcake.

After lunch he went to sleep in the easychair in the doctor's big office. That is, he threw his head back and shut his eyes, and breathed very heavily. Jess went through the room once with ice water, humming, for Violet was better. But the moment she saw the stranger asleep, she stopped her singing abruptly and tiptoed the rest of the way. Then as suddenly she turned around and came back, and very carefully shoved a cushion under the man's feet. It was so gently done that even if he had been really asleep, he would never have wakened. As it was, he could not resist opening one eye the slightest crack to see the bright chestnut hair as it passed out of sight.

"No," he thought to himself, "if she really hated me, she would never have done that."

But the children were very far from hating him. They liked him immensely. And when