was cut out to be a home-maker, to give happiness
to some nice, clean boy, to have a nursery full of rosy-cheeked babies.
And yet here she is, filled with a desire to rescue people, to snatch
brands from the burning. Here she is in the slums when she'd be
dramatically right in an apple orchard--at the time of year when the
trees are covered with pink and white blossoms."

The Young Doctor laughed. He so well understood the Superintendent--so
enjoyed her point of view.

"Yes," he agreed, "she'd be perfect there in an organdy frock with
the sun slanting across her face. But--well, she's just like other
girls. Tell a pretty girl that she's clever, they say, and tell a
clever girl that she's a raving, tearing beauty. That's the way for a
man to be popular!"

The Superintendent laughed quietly with him. It was a moment before she
grew sober again.

"I wonder," she said at last, "why you have never tried to be popular
with girls. You could so easily be popular. You're young and--don't try
to hush me up--good-looking. And yet--well, you're such an antagonistic
person. From the very first you've laughed at Rose-Marie--and she was
quite ready to adore you when she arrived. How do I know? Oh, I could
tell! Take the child seriously, Billy Blanchard, before she actually
begins to dislike you!"

The Young Doctor put several bottles of violently coloured pills into his
bag before he spoke.

"She dislikes me already," he said. "She's such a cool little person.
What are you trying to do, anyway? Are you trying to matchmake; to
stir up a love affair between the both of us--" suddenly he was
laughing again.

"I'm too busy to have a romance, you old dear," he told the
Superintendent, "far too busy. I'm as likely to fall in love, just now,
as you are!"

The woman's face was averted as she answered. But her low voice
was steady.

"When I was your age, Billy," she said gently, "I _was_ in love.
That's why, perhaps, I came here. That's why, perhaps, I stayed. No,
he didn't die--he married another girl. And dreams are hard things to
forget. That's why I left the country. Maybe that's why the little
Thompson girl--"

But the Young Doctor was shaking his head.

"She hasn't had any love affair," he told the Superintendent. "She's too
young and full of ideals to have anything so ordinary as a romance.
Everybody," his laugh was not too pleasant, "can have a romance! And few
people can be so filled with ideals as Miss Thompson. Oh,