go into the garden unless you're
looking better. It's a positive reflection on my professional skill, and
Laurel Spring will be shocked, and hold me responsible."

Mrs. MacGlowrie had recovered enough of her old spirit to reply that she
thought Laurel Spring could be in better business than looking at her
over her garden fence.

"But your dog, who knows you're not well, and doesn't think me quite a
fool, had the good sense to call me. You heard him."

But the widow protested that she was as strong as a horse, and that
Fluffy was like all puppies, conceited to the last degree.

"Well," said Blair cheerfully, "suppose I admit you are all right,
physically, you'll confess you have some trouble on your mind, won't
you? If I can't make you SHOW me your tongue, you'll let me hear you USE
it to tell me what worries you. If," he added more earnestly, "you won't
confide in your physician--you will perhaps--to--to--a--FRIEND."

But Mrs. MacGlowrie, evading his earnest eyes as well as his appeal, was
wondering what good it would do either a doctor, or--a--a--she herself
seemed to hesitate over the word--"a FRIEND, to hear the worriments of a
silly, nervous old thing--who had only stuck a little too closely to her
business."

"You are neither nervous nor old, Mrs. MacGlowrie," said the doctor
promptly, "though I begin to think you HAVE been too closely confined
here. You want more diversion, or--excitement. You might even go to
hear this preacher"--he stopped, for the word had slipped from his mouth
unawares.

But a swift look of scorn swept her pale face. "And you'd like me to
follow those skinny old frumps and leggy, limp chits, that slobber and
cry over that man!" she said contemptuously. "No! I reckon I only want a
change--and I'll go away, or get out of this for a while."

The poor doctor had not thought of this possible alternative. His heart
sank, but he was brave. "Yes, perhaps you are right," he said sadly,
"though it would be a dreadful loss--to Laurel Spring--to us all--if you
went."

"Do I look so VERY bad, doctor?" she said, with a half-mischievous,
half-pathetic smile.

The doctor thought her upturned face very adorable, but restrained his
feelings heroically, and contented himself with replying to the pathetic
half of her smile. "You look as if you had been suffering," he said
gravely, "and I never saw you look so before. You seem as if you had
experienced some great shock. Do you know," he went on, in a