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Show white brow. "Shell has promised to come to Ch.'.mpley House ami lire with us always what do you say to that?" "I say she's a brick," remarks Bob, who has joined the circle. Robert Ch-impley gave an amused glance at his promised wife, and then they both break into a hearty peal of laughter. (THE END.) ' ' CHAPTER XIII. (Continaied.) "And risk bringing back tine infection infec-tion here? No, thank you," cries Ruby, Ru-by, hotly. "I shall ask mamma to forbid for-bid you." "My dear Ruby," interposes Mrs. Wilden's voice with unusual firmness, "if Shell thinks it her duty to go I shall certainly not try to stop her. I shall feel terribly anxious, but it will only be for a day or so; ajul I believe the disease in its first stage is not very .-infectious." .-infectious." j "Do you mean that you would take j her back here amongst us after being j with the children?" asks Ruby, aghast. "Of course she will return wlien the nurse arrives. There Is no need to run unnecessary risk. If you and Violet feel nervous, we'd betted return to tha Wilderness, and Shell can stop here until the doctor warrants her safe." "I have such a horror of sm.ill-pox that I really think that would be the better plan," remarks Ruby, with a sigh of relief. "What do you say, Vi?" "Oh, let us start for Mudford by all means! I am not particularly timid, but I feel that I ought to go for Edwin's Ed-win's sake" Edwin is her fiance "it would be such a sell for him if he came home and found me disfigured. Shell, dear" pressing a hasty kiss on her cousin's cheek "you are a heroine; hero-ine; but the world is made up of all sorts, and I am the sort that runs away." "I am not a bit heroic, I should run away too if I felt afraid," laughs Shell; "but I don't, and therefore I shall take no harm." So it is arranged. Shell, after gathering gath-ering a few necessaries together and receiving a tearful embrace from her mother, hurries back to her sleeping charges; and during the afternoon Ruby Ru-by and Violet take their departure; while Mrs. Wilden is left to bemoan the fact that she ever allowed herself to be worried into taking a cottage.on the moor. . , ' CHAPTER XIV. Two days and nights have elapsed; no answer has been received to the doctor's hastily-despatched telegram; and Shell, sitting patiently beside her charges, begins to think that the address ad-dress given by Piper must have been an erroneous one. Nor has a professional profes-sional nurse put in her appearance the children are going on so favorably that the doctor deems the services of one unnecessary, since Shell is determined de-termined not to quit her post, and indeed in-deed has given a promise to that effect to her little patients. She is quite isolated from the rest o the household. The children are installed in-stalled in a large room at the end of the passage which on their arrival was fitte-1 up as a night-nursery. Shell is with them all day; at night she occupies occu-pies the roomy old sofa in the adjoining adjoin-ing room, leaving the door of communication com-munication open. All intercourse with the outer world is carried on cautiously round the saturated sat-urated sheet which cuts her off from the household in general. Yet somehow some-how Shell has no feeling of isolation; she has books in plenty to occupy her when the children sleep, and during their waking hours she has work enough to keep them amused. She is sitting at the ivy-wreathed casement on the third morning, looking look-ing out for the doctor's visit, when a hired carriage drawn by a pair of horses, hors-es, turns suddenly into the front yard. She cannot see the occupants as it passes beneath the window, and the front of the house is also out of sight. She rises from her seat with a strange feeling of confusion and nervousness; nerv-ousness; she would give worlds to become be-come invisible; she even glances out of the window, as if meditating escape in that direction. the doctor feared otherwise, but there is no doubt whatever now. they are suffering suf-fering from chicken-pox in its mildest form; only as KVs. Pomfret's children have not had it, ,we are taking every precaution." "And you have you had it?" asks Robert Champley anxiously. "Yes, three years' ago," laughs Shell; "so you see" with' a satirical little smile "I have been running no great .risk." i "As it has turned knit." answers her companion, regarding her steadily; "but I can never forget that yu nursed them during those twelve doubtful .hours when all others turned and fled." . "That is nothing," returns Shell care-lessSy; care-lessSy; then, advancing to the little cot3 drawn side by skle, she says to j' the children, "Now you "have got kind Mrs. Tolley, I am going to Tun away." ".No, no, Sell you stop too," lisps Meg., catching Shell's sleeve in her hot hand.. "Tolley can't tell about the fairy princess." "Oh,: yes, she can!" hazards Shell, with a, laughing glance at Mrs. Tolley. "Besides, I'll find o;it about more princesses prin-cesses to tell you when you are -well again;" and she "bends down to imprint im-print a farewell ltiss on the fevered face. Suddenly a gray-coated artm is interposed inter-posed between Shell's red lips and .little Meg's white brow. "I can allow no kissing !"says Robert Rob-ert Champley decidedly. Shell draws herself up rigid as a . grenadier, whilst Meg fights .feebly with I an intervening arm. "You have run risto enough without courting it," explains. Mr. Champley al-tmost al-tmost angrily. Shell merely shrugs "her shoulders. v'Mrs. Tolley," she says, turning to the housekeeper, "if, you will oome into the other room with me I wi'll-explain wi'll-explain about the medicine, t-cetera, and the doctor will 'be here sliortly, so you will have full directions' from him ' about tbie children." .Mrs. iTo'iley does as she'is asked,.and front' that "other room" Shell slips away home' without any further intercourse' inter-course' with Robert Champley. . A fortnight has elapsed. In the rustic rus-tic porclh of Gorse Cottage two figures are seated a laughing-eyed merry girl in spotless white, a tall, staflwart man in gray tweed. The house door is closed, and the interview is consequently conse-quently a private one. "I shal'l call you 'Pearl,' " the gentleman' gen-tleman' is saying, with laughing decision. de-cision. "No, Pworft be Pearl; my-old name suits me mmch better. I am rough and uneven amd bard in fact, thorough oyster-Shelt" pouts the girl afebellious- iy. "You certavnly conducted, yourself like a Shell :when I first incw you; but adversity opened the Shell, and then I saw the treasure inside, and pounced upon i'xny Pearl," laughs thei gentleman, "I hope I may leally prove a treasure to you, but I sometimes doubt it," says Shell with comic randor. "You know I have a good many faults I am quicktempered quick-tempered and blunt, and some people think me eccentric." Robert Champley Indulges tin an amused laugh. "You .will perhaps be surprised to ' hear that neither am I perfect," le returns. re-turns. "I can be obstinate, and even grumpy at times." "Really?" asks Shell in a. tone of, unbelief. un-belief. "Yes really and truly," laughs the gentleman.. "And now, Pearl I told you I was obstinate I want to know what induced you to be so pasti'cularly uncivil to Ted and me when we first returned to Champley House." "Was I very horrid?" she asks evas-J Then steps are heard down the passage, pas-sage, the door-handle turns, and the next moment Robert Champley enters the room, followed by the housekeeper at Champley House. "Papa, papa," shriek two shrill little lit-tle voices; "and Tolley dear old Tolley!" Tol-ley!" The children are caressed and quieted, quiet-ed, whilst Mrs. Tolley delights them with a huge bunch of flowers whih she has brought with her. Then Robert Champley crosses over to the window where Shell is standaig iu the background. The girl looks pale and almost stern, though a very unusual thing with. Shell she is trembling trem-bling visibly. "Shell, how can I ever thank you for this?" says Mr. Champley, in a tone broken by emotion. "There is nothing to thank me for that I see," answers Shell coldly. "I like nursing if mamma would only let. me I should like to enter a hospital." "No young and beautiful woman can like nursing small-pox cases," rejoins Robert Champley. It is the first time in her life that Shell has been called "beautiful," and a quick flush rises to her wiite skin which really renders her so for the moment. Then she breaks into a laugh. "It is chicken-pox not small-pox," she says quickly. "Are you sure?" asks her companion, compan-ion, whilst a look of relief lights up his whole face. "Yea, quite; for the first twelve hours ively, flushing. "You snubbed poor Ted so unmercifully unmerci-fully that I doubit if he will ever recover re-cover his normal state of placid conceit." con-ceit." "Well, you see, it was this way," explains ex-plains Shell in self-justification "I knew that you were rich, and that everybody ev-erybody would be particularly gracious and officious, so I made up my mind' to be an exception to the rule." "Which you certajniy were. Meg was oae of the first to find you out," laughs Meg's father, as that little damsel, dam-sel, soon tired afterher recent illness, comes creeping into Shell's lap. "That little dress reminds- me of the day I caught you working at the window," pursues Robert Chamtpley, touching his daughter's pale-blue skirts. "Does it?" says Shell, with a shy, pleased laugh. "Own the truth, Pearl;; you made that dress?" 'T certainly had a finder in the pie," answers Pearl demurely. "Do you remember, I told you then that the turquoise was your stone?" touching her left hand, on which flashes a circlet of diamonds surrounding surround-ing a turquoise, almost unique in color col-or and size. "I remember," assents Shell dreamily. dream-ily. "Tell me a tale, Sell," at this moment interposes Meg, laying her tired head with a restful sigh upon the girl's plump shoulder. "I'll tell you a tale, Meg," says her father, bending down to kiss the child's |