that he would require no attention
from the family until the next day. Indeed, it was better that he
should remain undisturbed. As the doctor confined his confidences and
instructions entirely to the physical condition of their guest, Mrs.
Rivers found it awkward to press other inquiries.

"Of course," she said at last hesitatingly, but with a certain primness
of expression, "Mr. Hamlin must expect to find everything here very
different from what he is accustomed to--at least from what my husband
says are his habits."

"Nobody knows that better than he, Mrs. Rivers," returned the doctor
with an equally marked precision of manner, "and you could not have a
guest who would be less likely to make you remind him of it."

A little annoyed, yet not exactly knowing why, Mrs. Rivers abandoned the
subject, and as the doctor shortly afterwards busied himself in the care
of his patient, with whom he remained until the hour of his departure,
she had no chance of renewing it. But as he finally shook hands with his
host and hostess, it seemed to her that he slightly recurred to it. "I
have the greatest hope of the curative effect of this wonderful locality
on my patient, but even still more of the beneficial effect of the
complete change of his habits, his surroundings, and their influences."
Then the door closed on the man of science and the grizzled negro
servant, the noise of the carriage wheels was shut out with the song of
the wind in the pine tops, and the rancho of Windy Hill possessed Mr.
Jack Hamlin in peace. Indeed, the wind was now falling, as was its
custom at that hour, and the moon presently arose over a hushed and
sleeping landscape.

For the rest of the evening the silent presence in the room above
affected the household; the half-curious servants and ranch hands spoke
in whispers in the passages, and at evening prayers, in the dining room,
Seth Rivers, kneeling before and bowed over a rush-bottomed chair whose
legs were clutched by his strong hands, included "the stranger within
our gates" in his regular supplications. When the hour for retiring
came, Seth, with a candle in his hand, preceded his wife up the
staircase, but stopped before the door of their guest's room. "I
reckon," he said interrogatively to Mrs. Rivers, "I oughter see ef he's
wantin' anythin'?"

"You heard what the doctor said," returned Mrs. Rivers cautiously.
At the same time she did not speak decidedly, and the frontiersman's
instinct of ho