ered with a low laugh.
"Eliza is afraid I won't 'do for you' in proper Providence style and
I'm very humble and--I--I want to learn. She thinks I ought to begin on
some--some shirts for you right now and I'm going to. What color do you
prefer?"

"Horrors!" exclaimed the Doctor, positively blushing at the thought of
the very lovely lady engaged in such a clothing mission.

"I knew you wouldn't have any confidence in them," answered Miss
Wingate mournfully, "and I haven't myself, but still I was willing to
try."

"Oh, yes, I have!" the young Doctor hastened to exclaim. "Better make
them suitable for traveling, for I've got marching orders in the noon
mail. Are you ready to start to Italy on short notice and then on to
India?"

"What?" demanded the singer lady with alarmed astonishment.

"Yes," answered the young Doctor coolly. "The Commission writes that my
reports on Pellagra down here are complete enough now for them to send
some chap down to continue them, while I go on to Southern Italy for a
study of similar conditions there and then on to India for a still more
exhaustive examination. The Government is determined to stamp this
scourge out before it gets a hold, and it's work to put out the fire
before it spreads. Better hurry the shirts and pack up your own fluff."

"But I'm not going a step or a wave," answered the singer girl
defiantly. "I'm too busy here now. I don't ever intend to leave Mother
as long as I live. I don't see how you can even suggest such a thing to
me."

"Do you know what leaving Mother is like?" asked the young Doctor, as
he looked down on her with tenderness in his gray eyes and Mother
Mayberry's own quizzical smile on his lips. "It's like going to sleep
at night with a last look at Providence Nob,--you wake up in the
morning and find it more there than ever. She was THERE on sunny
mornings over in Berlin and THERE on gray days in London and I had her
on long hard hospital nights in New York. Just come with me on this
trip and I promise she and Old Harpeth will be here when we get back.
Please!"

"I don't know," answered Miss Wingate in a small voice as she rubbed
her cheek against the arm of his coat. "I'm in love with Tom Mayberry
of Providence Road. I don't know that I want to go traveling with a
distinguished physician on an important Government mission and attend
Legation dinners and banquets and--I don't want to leave my Mother,"
and there was a real catch in the laugh she smot