with that line down the middle
of human's brains. Well, this yere brook is practically the same thing,
considerin' East and West Lancaster for a minute as brains, the which is
a high compliment to both."

So, at the earliest possible moment, the Doctor had cast in his fortunes
with the "quality." East Lancaster affected refined astonishment at
first, but when the resident physician, who had long enjoyed the deep
respect of the community, had been gathered to his fathers, Doctor
Brinkerhoff became the last resort. His skill was universally admitted,
but no one went to his office, for fear of meeting undesirable
strangers. It was thought to be in better taste to pay the double fee
and have the Doctor call, even for such slight ailments as boils and cut
fingers.

The man was mentally broad enough to be amused at the eccentricities of
East Lancaster, though his keen old eyes did not fail to discern that he
was merely tolerated where he had hoped to find friends. Within the
narrow confines of his establishment, he cultivated a serene and
comfortable philosophy. To suit himself to his environment when that
environment was out of his power to change, to seek for the good in
everything and resolutely refuse to be affected by the bad, to believe
steadfastly in the law of Compensation--this was Doctor Brinkerhoff's
creed.

On Wednesday and Saturday evenings, he was received as an equal by two
of the aristocratic families. On Sunday mornings, he never failed to
attend church. Before the last notes of the bell died away, he was
always in his place. After the service, he hurried away, making courtly
acknowledgments on every side to the formal greetings.

Sunday afternoons, precisely at half-past four, he went up the hill to
Herr Kaufmann's and spent the evening. This weekly visit was the leaven
of Fraeulein Fredrika's humdrum life. There was a sort of romance about
it which glorified the commonplace and she looked forward to it with
repressed excitement. Poor Fraeulein Fredrika! Perhaps she, too, had her
dreams.

In many respects the two men were kindred. Their conversations were
frequently perfunctory, but lacked no whit of sustaining grace for that.
Talk, after all, is pathetically cheap. Where one cannot understand
without words, no amount of explanation will make things clear. Across
impassable deeps, like lofty peaks of widely parted ranges, soul greets
soul. Separated forever by the limitations of our clay, we live and d