erest in them pleased Mrs. Mayberry.
The subject of the Doctor, his absence and the probable time of his
return was not mentioned by his mother, and for the life of her Miss
Wingate could not muster the courage for a single question. She felt
utterly unable to stand even the most mild eulogy on the peony-girl and
was glad that nothing occurred to turn the conversation in that
direction. She was silent for the most part, and most assiduous in her
attentions to Martin Luther, whose rapidly filling outlines were making
him into a chubby edition of the Raphaelite angel. Martin had landed in
the garden of the gods and was making the most of the golden days. He
bore his order of American boyhood with jaunty grace, and the curl had
assumed a rampant air in place of the pathetic.

"Martin, do you want me to wash your face and hands and come go
visiting with me?" asked the singer lady, as she stood on the front
steps and watched Mother Mayberry depart in her old buggy on the way to
visit a patient over the Nob. A long, lonely afternoon was more than
she could face just now, and she felt certain that distraction, if not
amusement, could be found in a number of places along the Road.

"Thank, ma'am, please," answered Martin Luther, who still clung to the
formula that he had found to be a perfectly good open sesame to most of
the pleasant things of life, when used as he knew how to use it.

So, taking her rose-garden hat in one hand and Martin Luther's chubby
fist in the other, Miss Wingate started down Providence Road for a
series of afternoon calls, at the fashionable hour of one-thirty. She
was just passing by Mrs. Peavey's gate with no earthly thought of going
in when she beheld the disconsolate Buck stretched full length on the
grass under a tree, which was screened by a large syringa bush from the
front windows of the maternal residence. A hoe rested languidly beside
him, and it was a plain case of farm hookey.

"Oh, Miss Elinory," called his mother from the side steps, "did Mis'
Mayberry hear about that fire down in town that burned up two firemen,
a police and a woman?" At the sound of his mother's strident voice,
Buck curled up in a tight knot and with a despairing glance rolled
under the bush.

"I don't know, Mrs. Peavey, but I'll tell her," Miss Wingate called
back as she prepared to hasten on for fear Mrs. Peavey would come to
the gate for further parley, and thus discover the exhausted culprit.

"And a man tooken