er
could wholly describe Ellen Burns. There was something about her which
seemed to glow, so that he soon felt that her presence in the quietly
rich and restful living room completed its furnishing, and that once
having seen her there the place could never be quite at its best without
her.

Burns came back, and the three went out to dinner. The small boy, a
handsome, auburn-haired, brown-eyed composite of his parents, had been
sent away, the embraces of both father and mother consoling him for his
banishment to the arms of a coloured mammy. Coolidge thoroughly enjoyed
the simple but appetizing dinner, of the sort he had known he should
have as soon as he had met the mistress of the house. And after it he
was borne away by Burns to the office.

"I have to go out again at once," the physician announced. "I'm going to
take you with me. I suppose you have a distaste for the sight of
illness, but that doesn't matter seriously. I want you to see this
patient of mine."

"Thank you, but I don't believe that's necessary," responded Coolidge
with a frown. "If Mrs. Burns is too busy to keep me company I'll sit
here and read while you're out."

"No, you won't. If you consult a man you're bound to take his
prescriptions. I'm telling you frankly, for you'd see through me if I
pretended to take you out for a walk and then pulled you into a house.
Be a sport, Cooly."

"Very well," replied the other man, suppressing his irritation. He was
almost, but not quite, wishing he had not yielded to the unexplainable
impulse which had brought him here to see a man who, as he should have
known from past experience in college days, was as sure to be eccentric
in his methods of practising his profession as he had been in the
conduct of his life as a student.

The two went out into the winter night together, Coolidge remarking that
the call must be a brief one, for his train would leave in a little more
than an hour.

"It'll be brief," Burns promised. "It's practically a friendly call
only, for there's nothing more I can do for the patient--except to see
him on his way."

Coolidge looked more than ever reluctant. "I hope he's not just leaving
the world?"

"What if he were--would that frighten you? Don't be worried; he'll not
go to-night."

Something in Burns's tone closed his companion's lips. Coolidge resented
it, and at the same time he felt constrained to let the other have his
way. And after all there proved to be nothing in the s