carries a fob. Oh, yes, same old fellow.
Very kind of him, mother, but wouldn't you rather have the sunlight
dance in upon you as it does here and catch a glimpse of the sea
through the window than to look across at your neighbors' back walls
and white marble steps?" It was across that same sea that Jane was
coming, and the sunshine would come with her!

"Yes; but, John, surely you are not going to refuse this without
looking into it?" she argued, eyeing him through her gold-rimmed
glasses. "Go and see him, and then you can judge. It's his practice you
want, not his house."

"No; that's just what I don't want. I've got too much practice now.
Somehow I can't keep my people well. No, mother, dear, don't bother
your dear head over the old doctor and his wants. Write him that I am
most grateful, but that the fact is I need an assistant myself, and if
he will be good enough to send someone down here, I'll keep him busy
every hour of the day and night. Then, again," he continued, a more
serious tone in his voice, "I couldn't possibly leave here now, even if
I wished to, which I do not."

Mrs. Cavendish eyed him intently. She had expected just such a refusal
Nothing that she ever planned for his advancement did he agree to.

"Why not?" she asked, with some impatience.

"The new hospital is about finished, and I am going to take charge of
it."

"Do they pay you for it?" she continued, in an incisive tone.

"No, I don't think they will, nor can. It's not, that kind of a
hospital," answered the doctor gravely.

"And you will look after these people just as you do after Fogarty and
the Branscombs, and everybody else up and down the shore, and never
take a penny in pay!" she retorted with some indignation.

"I am afraid I will, mother. A disappointing son, am I not? But there's
no one to blame but yourself, old lady," and with a laugh he rose from
his seat, Jane's letter in his hand, and kissed his mother on the cheek.

"But, John, dear," she exclaimed in a pleading petulance as she looked
into his face, still holding on to the sleeve of his coat to detain him
the longer, "just think of this letter of Pencoyd's; nothing has ever
been offered you better than this. He has the very best people in
Philadelphia on his list, and you would get--"

The doctor slipped his hand under his mother's chin, as he would have
done to a child, and said with a twinkle in his eye--he was very happy
this morning:

"That's precisely my c