but my call was on business, to-day. I believe I must
trouble you with my bill for attendance during your wife's illness."

"Ah! yes; I recollect. Have you it with you? Fifty dollars! Impossible!
Why, she was not ill above three weeks."

"Very true; but think of the urgency of the case. Three or four calls
during twenty-four hours were necessary, and two whole nights I passed
at her bedside."

"And yet the charge appears to me enormous. Call it forty, and I will
hand you the amount at once."

The doctor hesitates. "I cannot afford to lose ten dollars, which is
justly my due, Mr. Wilton."

"Suit yourself, doctor. Take forty, and receipt the bill, or stick to
your first charge, and wait till I am ready to pay it. Fifty dollars is
no trifle, I can tell you."

And this is the man whose life might have been a blank but for the
doctor's skill!

Again we are travelling onward. The unpaid bill is left in Mr. Wilton's
hand, and yet the doctor half regrets that he had not submitted to the
imposition. Money is greatly needed just now, and there seems little
prospect of getting any.

Again and again the horse is stopped at some well-known post. A poor
welcome has the doctor to-day. Some bills are collected, but their
amount is discouragingly small. Everybody appears to feel astonishingly
healthy, and have almost forgotten that they ever had occasion for a
physician. There is one consolation, however: sickness will come again,
and then, perhaps, the unpaid bill may be recollected. Homeward goes
the doctor. He is naturally of a cheerful disposition; but now he is
seriously threatened with a fit of the blues. A list of calls upon his
slate has little effect to raise his spirits. "All work and no pay," he
mutters to himself, as he puts on his dressing-gown and slippers; and,
throwing himself upon the lounge, turns a deaf ear to the little ones,
while he indulges in a revery as to the best mode of paying the doctor.

KEEP IN STEP.

Those who would walk together must keep in step.

--OLD PROVERB.

AY, the world keeps moving forward,
Like an army marching by;
Hear you not its heavy footfall,
That resoundeth to the sky?
Some bold spirits bear the banner--
Souls of sweetness chant the song,--
Lips of energy and fervour
Make the timid-hearted strong!
Like brave soldiers we march forward;
If you linger or turn back,
You must look to get a