dear life.

"You seem to have some one else here--some friend," he remarked
tentatively.

"Friend!" echoed the housekeeper with exasperation, feeling to see just
how much Zeke had rumpled her immaculate collar. "We looked like friends
when you came up, didn't we!"

"Like intimate friends," murmured the doctor, still looking curiously at
the big fair-haired fellow, who was crimson to his temples.

"I don't know how long we shall continue friends if he ever grabs me
again like that just after I've put on a clean collar. He's got beyond
the place where I can correct him. I ought to have done it oftener when
I had the chance. This is my boy 'Zekiel, Dr. Ballard," with a proud
glance in the direction of the youth, who looked up and nodded, then
continued his labors. "Mr. Evringham has engaged him on trial. He's been
with horses a couple of years, and I guess he'll make out all right."

"Glad to know you, 'Zekiel," returned the doctor. "Your mother has been
a good friend of mine half my life, and I've often heard her speak of
you. Look out for my horse, will you? I shall be here half an hour or
so."

When the doctor had moved off toward the house Mrs. Forbes nodded at her
son knowingly.

"Might's well walk Hector into the barn and uncheck him, Zeke," she
said. "They'll keep him more'n a half an hour. That young man, 'Zekiel
Forbes,--that young man's my _hope_." Mrs. Forbes spoke impressively and
shook her forefinger to emphasize her words.

"What you hoping about him?" asked 'Zekiel, laying down the harness and
proceeding to lead the gray horse up the incline into the barn.

"Shouldn't wonder a mite if he was our deliverer," went on Mrs. Forbes.
"I saw it in Mrs. Evringham's eye that he suited her, the first night
that she met him here at dinner. I like him first-rate, and I don't mean
him any harm; but he's one of these young doctors with plenty of money
at his back, bound to have a fashionable practice and succeed. His face
is in his favor, and I guess he knows as much as any of 'em, and he
can afford the luxury of a wife brought up the way Eloise Evringham has
been. That's right, Zeke. Unfasten the check-rein, though the doctor
don't use a mean one, I must say. I only hope there's a purgatory for
the folks that use too short check-reins on their horses. I hope they'll
have to wear 'em themselves for a thousand years, and have to stand
waiting at folks' doors frothing at the mouth, and the back of their
necks hal