THE SICK-A-BED LADY
Whatever it was, though, it kept staring at her fixedly, balancing itself all the while most perfectly on its chin. It was a funny sight, and while the Sick-A-Bed Lady was puckering her forehead trying to think out what it all meant the Young Man's Face smiled at her and said "Boo!" and the Sick-A-Bed Lady tiptilted her chin weakly and said—"Boo yourself!" Then the Sick-A-Bed Lady fell into her fearful stupor again, and the Young Man's Face ran home as fast as it could to tell its Best Friend that the Sick-A-Bed Lady had spoken her first sane word for five weeks. He thought it was a splendid victory, but when he tried to explain it to his friend, he found that "Boo yourself!" seemed a fatuous proof of so startling a truth, and was obliged to compromise with con siderable dignity on the statement: "Well, of course, it was n't so much what she said as the way she said it."
For days and days that followed, the Sick-A-Bed Lady was conscious of nothing except the Young Man's Face on the footboard of the bed. It never seemed to wabble, it never seemed to waver, but just stayed there perfectly balanced on the point of its chin, watching her gravely with its blue, blue eyes. There was a cleft in its chin, too, that you could have stroked with your finger if—you could have. Of course, there were some times when she went to
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