or."

"Oh! But it's the doctor I wish to see. Is he in?"

Bubble was now plainly agitated.

"If you'll just wait a moment, I'll--I'll see."

Leaving Esther smiling upon the steps he disappeared into the shaded
office and pulled up the blinds. The couch had been decorously
straightened. The office was empty! Bubble gave a sigh of relief and his
professional manner returned.

"He isn't just what you might call in," he explained affably to Esther.
"But he'll be down directly. Walk in."

Esther walked in and took the seat which Bubble indicated.

"Somebody sick over at your house?" with ill-concealed hope.

Esther dimpled. "Not dangerously, thank you."

"Then it's just tickets for the choir concert. I might have known. But
you're too late. Doctor's got half a dozen already. He--"

Further revelations were cut short by the entrance of the doctor
himself. A doctor with sleep-cleared eyes, fresh collar, and newly
brushed hair. A doctor who shook hands with his caller in a manner which
even the professional Bubble felt to be irreproachable.

"Bubble, you may go."

With a grin of satisfied pride the junior partner departed, but once
outside the gloomy expression returned.

"It's only choir-tickets!" he told Ann, who was waiting around the
corner of the house. "Come on--let's go fishin'."

Inside the office Esther and the doctor looked at each other and smiled.
He, because he felt like smiling; she, because she felt nervous. Yet it
was not going to be as awkward as she had feared. With a decided sense
of relief she realised that Dr. Callandar looked exactly like a doctor
after all! Convention, even in clothes, has a calming effect. There was
little of the weary tramp who had quenched his throat at the school
pump in the well groomed and quietly capable looking doctor. With a
notable decrease of tension Esther saw that the man before her was a
stranger, a pleasant, professional stranger, with whom no embarrassment
was possible.

As for him he realised nothing except that Coombe was really a
delightful place. He felt glad that he had stayed.

"No one ill, I hope, Miss Coombe?" His tone, even, seemed to have lost
the whimsical inflection of the tramp.

"No, Doctor. Not ill exactly. It is Aunt Amy. We cannot understand just
what is the matter. You see, Aunty imagines things. She is not quite
like other people. Perhaps," with a quick smile as she thought of Mrs.
Sykes, "perhaps you may have heard of her--of her fa