nerves, had acted upon them like daylight on bugaboos and ghosts. Dr. Baird, unlike Dr. Evarts, believed in taking a patient into his confidence. Gradually Sheilah's disagreeable sensations were sneaking away, one by one. She was ever so much better.
Lying now on her hilltop (her hilltop because she sought it so often), Sheilah rejoiced in the consciousness of being better, as another might rejoice in the consciousness of physical perfection. How good to lie upon a hilltop, day after day, and feel strength running back through one's finger-tips instead of out of them. It was one of her secret delights to imagine that the hill was holding her up, like some kind friend, as far as it could reach toward the healing qualities of sun and sky and wind. And at the same time giving to her of its own healing qualities.
Now, burrowing her finger-tips down through the thick, tufted grass till they found the cool, coarse soil, she fancied that she was drinking of the hill's strength, through her fingers, as the hardy little asters surrounding her drank through their roots, or the sturdy junipers, or the two rugged pines that stood like guards above her bed. At certain moments Sheilah's rejoicing amounted almost to intoxication. Dear kind hill—dear, strong, kind hill that would not let her fall! 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord.' That was the way David
