mortuae quidem credendum est," said Mr. Gridley. "You
wouldn't trust a woman even if she was dead, hey, Nurse?"

"Not till she was buried, 'n' the grass growin' a foot high over her,"
said Nurse Byloe, "unless I'd know'd her sence she was a baby. I've
know'd this one sence she was two or three year old; but this gal ain't
Myrtle Hazard no longer,--she's bewitched into somethin' different. I'll
tell ye what, Mr. Gridley; you get old Dr. Hurlbut to come and see her
once a day for a week, and get the young doctor to stay away. I'll resk
it. She 'll have some dreadful tantrums at fust, but she'll come to it
in two or three, days."

Master Byles Gridley groaned in spirit. He had come to this village to
end his days in peace, and here he was just going to make a martyr of
himself for the sake of a young person to whom he was under no
obligation, except that he had saved her from the consequences of her own
foolish act, at the expense of a great overturn of all his domestic
habits. There was no help for it. The nurse was right, and he must
perform the disagreeable duty of letting the Doctor know that he was
getting into a track which might very probably lead to mischief, and that
he must back out as fast as he could.

At 2 P. M. Gifted Hopkins presented the following note at the Doctor's
door:

"Mr. Byles Gridley would be much obliged to Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut if he
would call at his study this evening."

"Odd, is n't it, father, the old man's asking me to come and see him?
Those old stub-twist constitutions never want patching."

"Old man! old man! Who's that you call old,--not Byles Gridley, hey?
Old! old! Sixty year, more or less! How old was Floyer when he died,
Fordyce? Ninety-odd, was n't it? Had the asthma though, or he'd have
lived to be as old as Dr. Holyoke,--a hundred year and over. That's old.
But men live to be a good deal more than that sometimes. What does Byles
Gridley want of you, did you say?"

"I'm sure I can't tell, father; I'll go and find out." So he went over
to Mrs. Hopkins's in the evening, and was shown up into the study.

Master Gridley treated the Doctor to a cup of such tea as bachelors
sometimes keep hid away in mysterious caddies. He presently began asking
certain questions about the grand climacteric, which eventful period of
life he was fast approaching. Then he discoursed of medicine, ancient
and modern, tasking the Doctor's knowledge not a little, and evincing a
good d