Frank Merriwell's Son; or, a Chip Off the Old Block

Lizette, the French nurse, came softly and lightly down the stairs and found Frank Merriwell pacing the library floor, while Bart Hodge and Elsie Bellwood talked to him soothingly.

"Madame will see you now, saire," said the nurse, with a little curtsy. "Ze doctaire he is gone now some time. Madame she is comforterbill. She say she see you—alone."

Frank was all eagerness to go. He bounded up the stairs, two at a time, scarcely heeding the white-capped nurse, who hurried after him, softly calling:

"Not on ze rush, saire. You make ze rush, you gif madame ze start."

"That's so," muttered Merry, checking himself at the head of the stairs and waiting for the cautious nurse. "Lizette, lead the way."

The girl, stepping softly as a cat, gently opened a door for him, thus revealing a chamber where the light was softened by drawn window shades. Within that chamber Mrs. Merriwell reclined amid the snowy pillows of a broad bed.

"Ze mastaire is here, madame," said the nurse, as Frank entered.

In a moment Merry was bending over his wife.

Something small and pink, in a soft white garment, nestled on her arm. It uttered a weak little cry—the cry of a new life in the great seething world—which was sweet music to the pale woman on the bed and the anxious man who bent over her.

"Oh, Frank," murmured Inza, "he's calling to you! He knows his father has come."