. You can climb the fences, I dare say," and he looked at Betty
with a queer little smile. Perhaps he had seen her sometimes crossing
the fields with Mary Beck.

"Do you mean that he is going to die to-day?" asked Betty, with great
awe. "Ought I to go then?"

"Love may go where common kindness is shut out," said Dr. Prince. "You
have done a great deal to make those poor children happy, this summer.
They had been treated in a very narrow-minded way. It was not like
Tideshead, I must say," he added, "but people are shy sometimes, and
Mrs. Foster herself could not bear to see the pity in her neighbors'
faces. It will be easier for her now."

"I keep thinking, what if it were my own papa?" said Betty softly. "He
couldn't be so wicked, but he might be ill, and I not there."

"Dear me, no!" said the doctor heartily, and giving Betty's hand a tight
grasp and a little swing to and fro. "I suppose he's having a capital
good time up among his glaciers. I wish that I were with him for a
month's holiday;" and at this Betty was quite cheerful again.

Now they stopped at Betty's own gate. "You must take your Aunt Mary in
hand a little, before you go away. There's nothing serious the matter
now, only lack of exercise and thinking too much about herself."

"She did come to my tea-party in the garden," responded Betty, with a
faint smile, "and I think sometimes she almost gets enough courage to go
to walk. She didn't sleep at all last night, Serena said this morning."

"You see, she doesn't need sleep," explained Dr. Prince, quite
professionally. "We are all made to run about the world and to work.
Your aunt is always making blood and muscle with such a good appetite,
and then she never uses them, and nature is clever at revenges. Let her
hunt the fields, as you do, and she would sleep like a top. I call it a
disease of _too-wellness_, and I only know how to doctor sick people.
Now there's a lesson for you to reflect upon," and the busy doctor went
hurrying back to where he had left his horse standing, when he first
caught sight of Betty's white and anxious face.

As she entered the house Aunt Barbara was just coming out. "I am going
to see poor Mrs. Foster, my dear, or to ask for her at the door," she
said, and Serena and Letty and Jonathan all came forward to ask whether
Betty knew any later news. Seth Pond had been loitering up the street
most of the morning, with feelings of great excitement, but he presently
came back with