gloved hand, a gold-mounted whip in the other, sat Lucy. She was
dressed in her smartest driving toilette--a short yellow-gray jacket
fastened with big pearl buttons and a hat bound about with the breast
of a tropical bird. Her eyes were dancing, her cheeks like ripe peaches
with all the bloom belonging to them in evidence, and something more,
and her mouth all curves and dimples.

When the doctor reached her side--he had heard the sound of the wheels,
and looking through the window had caught sight of the drag--she had
risen from her perch and was about to spring clear of the equipage
without waiting for the helping hand of either Bones or himself. She
was still a girl in her suppleness.

"No, wait until I can give you my hand," he said, hurrying toward her.

"No--I don't want your hand, Sir Esculapius. Get out of the way,
please--I'm going to jump! There--wasn't that lovely?" And she landed
beside him. "Where's sister? I've been all the way to Yardley, and
Martha tells me she has been here almost all the week. Oh, what a
dreadful, gloomy-looking place! How many people have you got here
anyhow, cooped up in this awful-- Why, it's like an almshouse," she
added, looking about her. "Where did you say sister was?"

"I'll go and call her," interpolated the doctor when he could get a
chance to speak.

"No, you won't do anything of the kind; I'll go myself. You've had her
all the week, and now it's my turn."

Jane had by this time closed the lid of her desk, had moved out into
the hall, and now stood on the top step of the entrance awaiting Lucy's
ascent. In her gray gown, simple head-dress, and resigned face, the
whole framed in the doorway with its connecting background of dull
stone, she looked like one of Correggio's Madonnas illumining some old
cloister wall.

"Oh, you dear, DEAR sister!" Lucy cried, running up the short steps to
meet her. "I'm so glad I've found you; I was afraid you were tying up
somebody's broken head or rocking a red-flannelled baby." With this she
put her arms around Jane's neck and kissed her rapturously.

"Where can we talk? Oh, I've got such a lot of things to tell you! You
needn't come, you dear, good doctor. Please take yourself off,
sir--this way, and out the gate, and don't you dare come back until I'm
gone."

My Lady of Paris was very happy this morning; bubbling over with
merriment--a condition that set the doctor to thinking. Indeed, he had
been thinking most intently about my