, and apologized by a laugh. The
Doctor grunted, looked out of the carriage window, and, suddenly
turning, asked:--

"Do you know that Reisen instructed his wife about six months ago, in
the event of his death or disability, to place all her interests in your
hands, and to be guided by your advice in everything?"

"Oh!" exclaimed Richling, "he can't do that! He should have asked my
consent."

"I suppose he knew he wouldn't get it. He's a cunning simpleton."

"But, Doctor, if you knew this"--Richling ceased.

"Six months ago. Why didn't I tell you?" said the physician. "I thought
I would, Richling, though Reisen bade me not, when he told me; I made no
promise. But time, that you think goes slow, was too fast for me."

"I shall refuse to serve," said Richling, soliloquizing aloud. "Don't
you see, Doctor, the delicacy of the position?"

"Yes, I do; but you don't. Don't you see it would be just as delicate a
matter for you to refuse?"

Richling pondered, and presently said, quite slowly:--

"It will look like coming down out of the tree to catch the apples as
they fall," he said. "Why," he added with impatience, "it lays me wide
open to suspicion and slander."

"Does it?" asked the Doctor, heartlessly. "There's nothing remarkable in
that. Did any one ever occupy a responsible position without those
conditions?"

"But, you know, I have made some unscrupulous enemies by defending
Reisen's interests."

"Um-hmm; what did you defend them for?"

Richling was about to make a reply; but the Doctor wanted none.
"Richling," he said, "the most of men have burrows. They never let
anything decoy them so far from those burrows but they can pop into them
at a moment's notice. Do you take my meaning?"

"Oh, yes!" said Richling, pleasantly; "no trouble to understand you this
time. I'll not run into any burrow just now. I'll face my duty and think
of Mary."

He laughed.

"Excellent pastime," responded Dr. Sevier.

They rode on in silence.

"As to"--began Richling again,--"as to such matters as these, once a man
confronts the question candidly, there is really no room, that I can
see, for a man to choose: a man, at least, who is always guided by
conscience."

"If there were such a man," responded the Doctor.

"True," said John.

"But for common stuff, such as you and I are made of, it must sometimes
be terrible."

"I dare say," said Richling. "It sometimes requires cold blood to choose
aright."

"As cold as gr