ending his beauties and favorites, while he
watched for the children coming home. His name and profession, set forth
on a bright brass plate, adorned the gate, from which a straight
box-edged path led to the white steps of the porch. The stable entrance
was at the side. Everything about the place had an air of well-doing and
of means enough; and the doctor himself, whom the strangers eyed
observantly from the height of their saddles, looked like his own master
in all the independence of easy circumstances.

Visitors to the Forest were too numerous in summer to attract notice.
Mr. Carnegie lifted his head for a moment, and then continued his
assiduities to a lovely old yellow rose which had manifested delicate
symptoms earlier in the season. Next to his wife and children the doctor
was fond of roses. The travellers rode past to the door of the "King's
Arms," and there dismounted. Half an hour after they were dining in an
up-stairs, bow-windowed room which commanded a cheerful prospect up and
down the village street, with a view of the church opposite and a side
glance of Mr. Carnegie's premises. They witnessed the return of Bessie
and the boys, and the fatherly help and reception they had. They saw the
doctor lift up Bessie's face to look at her, saw him pat her on the
shoulder encouragingly as she made him some brief communication, saw him
open the door and send her into the house, and then hurry round to the
stable to prevent the boys lingering while Jerry was rubbed down. He
had leisure and the heart, it seemed, for all such offices of kindness,
and his voice was the signal of instant obedience.

Later in the evening they were all out in the garden--Mrs. Carnegie too.
One by one the children were dismissed to bed, and when only Bessie was
left, the doctor filled his pipe and had a smoke, walking to and fro
under the hedge, over which he conversed at intervals with passing
neighbors. His wife and Bessie sat in the porch. The only thing in all
this that Mr. Fairfax could except to was the doctor's clay pipe. He
denounced smoking as a low, pernicious habit; the lawyer, more tolerant,
remarked that it was an increasing habit and good for the revenue, but
bad for him: he believed that many a quarrel that might have ripened
into a lawsuit had prematurely collapsed in the philosophy that comes of
tobacco-smoke.

"Perhaps it would prepare me with equanimity to meet my adversary," said
Mr. Fairfax.

Mr. John Short had not