Free Spice Box by Grace Livingston Hill

remember. It was in a storm, I know.”
    “Yes,” said the doctor quietly, “it was in a storm. Do you know where I found you?”
    She gave him a startled look.
    “Did
you
find me? Where?”
    “You were lying in the snow at the entrance to the cemetery near Willow Croft. Do you remember enough about it to know what you were going to do?”
    She was quiet, thoughtful a moment.
    “Yes, I remember a little. I think I was going to my sister. There seemed no other place to go then, and the storm was terrible. I couldn’t go any farther. I was so very tired.”
    “Poor little girl,” said Howard Sterling, gently laying his hand on her white one for an instant. “I know. And perhaps this telling about it is too hard for you, yet. Would you rather wait till you feel stronger?”
    “No, it is better to get it over,” she said with a sigh, closing her eyelids quickly and shaking off a couple of tears that were rolling down her cheeks. “It’s all right. If I’ve got to live, I’ve got to snap out of this. I thought perhaps I could die and go away where Louise went, but since I can’t, I’ve got to get strong enough to get a job and earn my living. I want to repay you people for all you’ve done for me. I realize it’s been a lot.”
    “There, now, you’re not to think about that,” he said soothingly. “We’ve all been glad to do everything we could to help, and we’re so happy that you are really on the mend now.”
    “You’ve all been wonderful!” she said with another of those quivering sighs.
    “But haven’t you any friends? Wouldn’t you like to have us send for some of them?”
    A great fear came into her eyes.
    “Yes, I have a lot of ‘pleasant’ friends, but no such very close ones. You see, my sister was sick for quite awhile before and after the baby died, and I stayed at home with her most of the time for a couple of years. We didn’t go out much. They are nice people, but I don’t want any of them now, please.”
    “Well, of course you do not have to have them if you do not want them,” said the doctor. “I just thought there might be a few who are missing you and greatly pained that you have disappeared.”
    “No,” she said. “They weren’t as intimate as that.”
    “I’m sorry,” said the doctor. “I was hoping there was at least one or two who would come and cheer you up if they knew where to find you.”
    She shook her head sadly, and Sterling felt that the interview for the present was at an end, till suddenly he thought of another question.
    “Do you know, my friend, you haven’t told me your name?”
    “Oh,” said the girl, and a look of fright came into her eyes. “Do I have to?”
    “Well, of course we’ve got to call you something,” he said, smiling genially. “We have to have something to put in the hospital records. You don’t want to just go by a number as if you were a convict, do you? The nurses and officials would think it was very strange if you had no name. Would you want to use an assumed name?”
    “Oh no, I wouldn’t like to do that,” she sighed. “But—I seem to have arrived here in such a dramatic style. I wouldn’t like to be talked about, nor have it get into the papers. My sister would have hated to have that happen to me. You see, we are very quiet people.”
    The doctor bowed gravely.
    “I can quite understand how you feel,” he said gently, “and I thought you would be pleased to know that I told only the officials of the hospital when I brought you here. I told them that you were found at the entrance of the cemetery as if you were going to the grave of a dear one. You have a right to your own privacy, of course, but haven’t you a middle name that you could use in some way? I think that would be pleasanter for you while you are here. Do you have any friends who live about here, who are in this immediate vicinity, who would be likely to come visit someone and perhaps see you or hear of you?”
    Janice looked up with a sudden,