ring her absence. The doctor bethought himself,
too, that there might be very natural explanations of the curate's
escort. How else, to be sure, could she have got home on a dark winter
night through that lonely road? Perhaps, if he himself had been less
impatient and ill-tempered, it might have fallen to his lot to supersede
Mr Wentworth. On the whole, Dr Rider decided that it was necessary to
make one of his earliest calls this morning at St Roque's.

It was a foggy frosty day, brightened with a red sun, which threw wintry
ruddy rays across the mist. Dr Rider drew up somewhat nervously at the
little Gothic porch. He was taken up-stairs to the bedroom where little
Freddy lay moaning and feverish. A distant hum came from the other
children in the parlour, the door of which, however, was fast closed
this morning; and Nettie herself sat by the child's bedside--Nettie, all
alert and vigorous, in the little room, which, homely as its aspect was,
displayed even to the doctor's uninitiated glance a fastidious nicety of
arrangement which made it harmonious with that little figure. Nettie was
singing childish songs to solace the little invalid's retirement--the
"fox that jumped up on a moonlight night," the "frog that would a-wooing
go"--classic ditties of which the nursery never tires. The doctor, who
was not aware that music was one of Nettie's accomplishments, stopped on
the stairs to listen. And indeed she had not a great deal of voice, and
still less science, Nettie's life having been too entirely occupied to
leave much room for such studies. Yet somehow her song touched the
doctor's heart. He forgave her entirely that walk with the curate. He
went in softly, less impatient than usual with her crazy Quixotism. A
child--a sick child especially--was a bearable adjunct to the picture. A
woman could be forgiven for such necessary ministrations--actually, to
tell the truth, could be forgiven most follies she might happen to do,
when one could have her to one's self, without the intervention of such
dreary accessories as Susan and Fred.

"Thank you very much for your care of this child last night, Dr Edward,"
said the prompt Nettie, laying down the large piece of very plain
needlework in her hand. "I always said, though you don't make a fuss
about the children, that you were quite to be relied on if anything
should happen. He is feverish, but he is not ill; and so long as I tell
him stories and keep beside him, Freddy is the bes