Tolbridge, I did not come altogether to see you this
afternoon. I hope Miss Drane has not gone home yet, for I thought it
would be nice to meet her here. Mother and I are going to call on them,
but I do not know when that will be; and I have heard so much about the
doctor's secretary that I am perishing to see her. They say she is very
pretty and bright. I wanted mother to go there to-day, but we have had a
long drive this morning, and to-morrow she and I and Herbert are going
to call at Cobhurst; and you know mother will never consent to crowd
things. And so I thought I would come here this afternoon by myself. It
won't be like a call, you know."

"Miss Drane is not here," said Mrs. Tolbridge; "but if you want to see
her, you can do it to-morrow, if you go to Cobhurst. She and her mother
are now living there, boarding with the Haverleys."

"Living at Cobhurst!" exclaimed Dora; and as she uttered these words, the
girl turned pale.

"Heavens!" mentally ejaculated the doctor's wife. "I do nothing this day
but explode bombshells."

In a moment Dora recovered nearly all her color, and laughed.

"It is so funny," she said, "that all sorts of things happen in this town
without our knowing it. Is she still going to be the doctor's secretary?"

"Yes, she can do her work out there as well as here."

Dora looked out of the window as if she saw something in the garden, and
Mrs. Tolbridge charitably took her out to show her some new dahlias.

Early the next morning, Dr. Tolbridge drove into the Witton yard. No
matter who waited for him, he would not delay this visit. When he asked
for Miss Panney, he had a strong idea that the old lady would refuse to
see him. But in an astonishingly short space of time, she marched into
the parlor, every war-flag flying, and closed the door behind her.

Without shaking hands or offering the visitor any sort of salutation, she
seated herself in a chair in the middle of the room. "Now," said she,
"don't lose any time in saying what you have got to say."

Not encouraged by this reception, the doctor could not instantly arrange
what he had to say. But he shortly got his ideas into order, and
proceeded to lay the case in its most favorable light before the old
lady, dwelling particularly on the reasons why she had not been consulted
in the affair.

Miss Panney heard him to the end without a change in the rigidity of her
face and attitude. "Very well, then," she said, when he had finished, "I