young patient die!

"We got here just in time," he said, tucking the light blanket closer
about Betty. "We've pulled the child through, but she was almost gone
when I first saw her; there was just a spark of life left,--a spark of
life," repeated the doctor.

"Who was it crying?" Betty asked.

"The mother," said the doctor. "I had just told her that she was going
to keep the little girl. Why, here's a good sound sassafras lozenge in
my pocket. Now we'll have a handsome entertainment."

Betty, who had just felt as if she were going to cry for nobody knew how
long, began to laugh instead, as Dr. Prince broke his unexpected lozenge
into honest halves and presented her solemnly with one of them. There
was never such a good sassafras lozenge before or since, and Pepper
trotted steadily home to her stall and the last end of her supper. "Only
think, if the doctor hadn't known just what to do," said Betty later to
Aunt Barbara, "and how he goes all the time to people's houses! Every
day we see him going by to do things to help people. This might have
been a freezing, blowing night, and he would have gone just the same."

"Dear child, run up to your bed now," said Aunt Barbara, kissing her
good-night; for Betty was very wide awake, and still had so many things
to say. She never would forget that drive at night. She had been taught
a great lesson of the good doctor's helpfulness, but Aunt Barbara had
learned it long ago.

XIV.

THE OUT-OF-DOOR CLUB.

THE Out-of-Door Club in Tideshead was slow in getting under way, but it
was a great success at last. Its first expedition was to the Picknell
farm, to see the place where there had been a great battle with the
French and Indians, in old times, and the relics of a beaver-dam were to
be inspected besides. Mr. Picknell came to talk about the plan with Miss
Barbara Leicester, who was going to drive out to the farm in the
afternoon, and then walk back with the club, as besought by Betty. She
was highly pleased with the eagerness of her young neighbors, who had
discovered in her an unsuspected sympathy and good-fellowship at the
time of Betty's June tea-party. It had been a pity to make believe old
in all these late years, and to become more and more a stranger to the
young people. Perhaps, if the club proved a success, it would be a good
thing to have winter meetings too, and read together.

Somehow Miss Barbara had never before known exactly what to do for the
young f