at up the whites, stiff as silver, added the
lemon juice by littles, dusted a bit of castor sugar, and stuck in a
sprig of mint from my sunken half-barrel where the cress grows.

"Ah, that makes a man new!" says he, handing back the glass. "It's a
pity you can't patent that, Rhoda!"

And then he pulled out his old pipe, and smoked for a quarter-hour,
without a word. But he rested.

"And how's Miss Jessop, these days, doctor?" says I, when I saw he was
ready for talking.

"Finely, finely!" says he. "Her little girl wrote me a letter
yesterday. Ten years old! Image of her father, that child. You're as
bad as Lisbet, though, that never would learn to change."

"I'm sure I beg her pardon--Mrs. Weldon, of course, and her with a boy
fourteen, too!" says I. "How Miss Lisbet did take to her, surely! I
always thought having her to help with Master Louis's children when
they were so bad, just helped poor Miss Lisbet to bear with her sorrow
at not starting the hospital, and all that."

"Yes, yes," he said and nodded.

"She was a fine woman, Jessop was. Best nurse I ever had. Yes,
yes--Weldon's a lucky fellow."

The cress smelled strong in the heat, then, and I couldn't but say:

"Do you remember when Miss Lisbet and I started the cress-bed, doctor,
down in the Winthrop pond?"

At first he didn't answer, and I saw the old times in his face.

"How she did enjoy your cress-and-mustard salad!" he says, finally.
"Mrs. Stanchon spoke of it this morning--have you a little mess I could
take up to the house?"

And so we passed to talking about her, and it eased us both.

"It's like a sort of tale, sir, isn't it?" says I, thoughtful-like.
"Often and often when my niece has left everything tidy, and made my
tea and cakes, and put away the wash, and watered the brick, and gone
home, and I sit here while the pot draws and there's only the cat for
company (not that I complain! I've my thoughts, and plenty of books,
and all the old days to live over!) often and often, as I say, it'll
come to me in a sort of tale, like, and I wish there was some one to
take it down; it would read off like a book!"

"And why not take it down yourself, Rhoda, my girl?" says he. "There's
one, as I needn't tell you, would have no little pleasure reading it."

And so I began. You'd be surprised at the many that's offered to help
me, and piece out bits of her life that maybe I wouldn't know. But I
knew enough for what I had in mind to sh