know more than I do, and you can go on and
talk; but you know there is not, and you know, too, that I was a very
sensible middle-aged woman when you were toddling around in frocks and
running against people. I believe you are trying to run against somebody
now. Who is it?"

"Well," said the doctor, "if it is anybody, it is young Haverley."

Miss Panney smiled. "You may think so," she said, "but I want you to know
that you are also running against me, and I say to you, confidentially,
and with as much trust in you as I used to have that you would not tell
who it was who spread your bread with forbidden jam, that I have planned
a match between these two; and if they marry, I intend to make pecuniary
matters more nearly even between them, than they are now."

The doctor looked at her earnestly.

"Do you suppose," said he, "that he would take money from you?"

"What I should do for him," she answered, "could not be prevented by him
or any one else."

"But there is no reason," urged the other.

The old lady smiled, took off her glasses, wiped them with her
handkerchief, and put them on again.

"There is so little in medicine books," she said. "His grandfather was
my cousin."

"The one--?" asked the startled doctor.

"Yes, that very one," she answered quickly; "but he does not know it,
and now we will drop the subject. I will try to get to Cobhurst
to-morrow before Dora leaves, and I will see if I cannot help matters
along a little."

The doctor laughed. "I was going to ask you to interfere with matters."

"Well, don't," she said. "And now tell me about your cook. Is she as
good as ever?"

"As good?" said the doctor. "She is better. The more she learns about our
tastes, the more perfectly she gratifies them. Mrs. Tolbridge and I look
upon her as a household blessing, for she gives us three perfect meals a
day, and would give us more if we wanted them; the butcher reverences
her, for she knows more about meat and how to cut it than he does. Our
man and our maid either tremble at her nod or regard her with the deepest
affection, for I am told that they spend a great deal of their time
helping her, when they should be attending to their own duties. She has,
in fact, become so necessary to our domestic felicity, and I may say, to
our health, that I do not know what will become of us if we lose her."

"Is there any chance of that?" eagerly asked the old lady.

"I fear there is," was the answer.

Miss Panney sp