looking out over the
cove and following the circling gulls. I think that, like myself, she
wondered at the simplicity of it all. A woman loved a man and clung to
him, and from that moment their personalities merged, and their thoughts
were shared, and a rough, rock-bound, fog-enwrapped land became, for all
its hardships, a place where a man could do great work while the woman
developed to the utmost her glorious faculties of helpfulness and tender
unselfishness.

To me there could be no doubt that this couple had made of their union
something very noble in achievement, though they were so quiet and simple
about it all. In so many marriages the partnership is but a poor
doggerel, while in others it is a poem of entrancing beauty, filling
hearts with happiness and heads with generous thought.

"You have been staring at me for a whole minute, Doctor," said Mr.
Jelliffe, suddenly. "Anything particularly wrong or fatal in my general
appearance?"

"I'm sure I beg your pardon," I said, in some confusion. "You are looking
ever so well and I wish I could hurry your leg on a little faster. Nature
has ordained that bones will take just about so long to mend. And now I
am going away to play. Practice happens to be quite slack to-day and
Frenchy should be waiting outside with my rod. I am going to see whether
I cannot deceive an innocent salmon into swallowing a little bunch of
feathers."

"How dare you speak of such things to an inveterate old angler, after
tying him up by one leg!" exclaimed my patient, shaking his fist at me.
"You fill my heart with envy and all manner of uncharitableness. I call
it the meanest thing I ever heard of on the part of a doctor. Here I am,
without even a new Wall Street report wherewith to possess my soul in
patience. Run away before I throw something at you, and good luck to
you!"

"I haven't dared to ask Miss Jelliffe whether she would like to cast a
fly also," I said. "I suppose she will have to stay and nurse your
wounded feelings."

"She has stuck to me like a leech since yesterday morning," complained
the old gentleman, "excepting for the short time when she went to church.
I don't seem to be able to get rid of her. Wish you would take her away
with you and get me some salmon that doesn't come in cans. She will
doubtless have plenty of rainy days during which she will be compelled to
stay indoors with me, whether I like it or not."

"I have a half a mind to take you at your word, to pun