nderstood clearly that his
presence in her house was most unwelcome to her. But he, too, had his
own pride, as distinct and as strong as hers, and at the very moment
that Hetty was saying to herself, "I'm on my own ground: I won't run
away from the popinjay," Dr. Eben was thinking in his heart, "What a
fool I am to care a straw about meeting her! I'm about my own business,
and she is an obstinate simpleton."

The expressions of their faces as they met, and passed, with cold bows,
were truly comical; each so thoroughly conscious of the other's
antagonism, and endeavoring to look unconscious of it.

"By Jove, she's got a charming face, if she didn't look so obstinate,"
said Dr. Eben to himself, as he hurried on.

"He looked at me as he'd have looked at a snake," thought Hetty. "I
guess he's an honest fellow after all. He's got a handsome beard of his
own."

When she entered Sally's room, Sally exclaimed, "Oh, Hetty! didn't you
meet the doctor?"

"Yes," said Hetty, coolly. Sally looked wistfully at her for a few
seconds. "Oh, Hetty!" she said, "I thought, perhaps, if you saw him,
you'd like him better."

"I never said any thing against his looks, did I?" laughed Hetty. "He is
a very handsome man: he is the handsomest man I ever saw, if that's
all!"

"But it isn't all; it isn't any thing!" exclaimed Sally. "If he were an
ugly dwarf, I should love him just as well. Oh, Hetty, if you only knew
how good he was to me, when I was sick seven years ago! I should have
died if it hadn't been for him. There wasn't a woman at the Corners that
ever came near me, except Mrs. Patrick, the Irish woman I boarded with;
and, he used to stop and make broth for me, on my stove, with his own
hands, and sit and hold the baby on his knees, and talk to me so
beautifully about her. He just kept me alive."

Hetty's face flushed. Sally had never told her so much before; she could
not help a glow at her heart, at the picture of the handsome young
doctor sitting with the poor, outcast baby on his knees, and comforting
the poor outcast mother. But Hetty was a Gunn; and, as Dr. Eben had
said, obstinate. She could not forget her partisanship for Dr. Tuthill.
She was even all the angrier with the young doctor for being so clever,
so kind, so skilful, so handsome, and so pleasant, that everybody wanted
him.

"I dare say," she replied. "He'd do anything to curry favor. He's been
determined from the first to get all the practice of the whole count