will all be wasted. You must stay.”

[71]

“No, it wouldn’t be right.” He shook his head again, and smiled wistfully. “What would people say?”

“Say! Why, they’ve got it in the paper that you’re to be here—at least, that Dick’s to be here. They’ll think you’re my nephew and think nothing else about it. Besides, I guess I have a right to have company if I like.”

“If there was any way I could pay you,” said the young man. “But I haven’t a cent to my name, and no telling how long before I will have anything. I really couldn’t accept any such hospitality.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Miss Marilla cheerily. “You can pay me if you like, sometime when you get plenty; or perhaps you’ll take me in when I’m[72] having a hard time. Anyhow, you’re going to stay. I won’t take no for an answer. I’ve been disappointed and disappointed about Dick’s coming, and me having no one to show for all the years of the war, just making sweaters for the world, it seemed like, with no one belonging to me; and now I’ve got a soldier, and I’m going to keep him at least for one night. Nobody’s to know but you’re my own nephew, and I haven’t got to go around the town, have I, telling that Dick didn’t care enough for his old country aunt to come out and take dinner with her? It’s nothing to them, is it, if they think he came and stayed overnight too? Or even a few days. Nobody’ll be any the wiser, and I’ll take a lot more comfort.”

[72]

“I’d like to accommodate you,” faltered the soldier; “but you know I really ought—” Suddenly the big fellow was seized with a fit of sneezing,[73] and the sick sore thrills danced all down his back, and slapped him in the face, and pricked him in the throat, and banged against his head. He dropped weakly down in a chair, and got out the discouragedest-looking handkerchief that ever a soldier carried. It looked as if it might have washed the decks on the way over, or wiped off shoes, as doubtless it had; and it left a dull streak of olive-drab dust on his cheek and chin when he had finished polishing off the last sneeze and lifted his suffering eyes to his hostess.

[73]

“You’re sick!” declared Miss Marilla with a kind of satisfaction, as if now she had got something she could really take hold of. “I’ve thought it all the evening. I first laid it to the wind in your face, for I knew you weren’t the drinking kind; and then I thought 

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