e and
loose-jointed, with the frame of a Titan and the smile of a child. He
wore a long, loose dressing-gown and a pair of slippers elaborately
embroidered in green roses. His big, irregular features were softened
by an expression of indulgent interest toward the world at large.

"Good morning, doctor. Howdy, Nettie. How are you all this morning?"

"Who's sick?" growled the doctor as he hitched his horse to the fence.

"It's a stray lad, doctor; my old cook, Melvy, played the good
Samaritan and picked him up off the road last night. She brought him
to me this morning. He's out of his head with a fever."

"Where'd he come from?" asked the doctor.

"Mrs. Hollis says he was peddling goods up at Main street and the
bridge last night."

"Which one is he?" demanded Annette, eagerly, as she emerged from the
buggy. "Is he g-good-looking, with blue eyes and light hair? Or is he
b-black and ugly and sort of cross-eyed?"

The judge peered over his glasses quizzically. "Thinking about the
boys, as usual! Now I want to know what business you have noticing the
color of a peddler's eyes?"

Annette blushed, but she stood her ground. "All the g-girls noticed
him. He wasn't an ordinary peddler. He was just as smart and f-funny
as could be."

"Well, he isn't smart and funny now," said the judge, with a grim
laugh.

The two men passed up the long avenue and into the house. At the door
they were met by Mrs. Hollis, whose small angular person breathed
protest. Her black hair was arranged in symmetrical bands which were
drawn tightly back from a straight part. When she talked, a
gold-capped tooth was disclosed on each side of her mouth, giving rise
to the judge's joke that one was capped to keep the other company,
since Mrs. Hollis's sense of order and regularity rebelled against one
eye-tooth of one color and the other of another.

"Good morning, doctor," she said shortly; "there's the door-mat. No,
don't put your hat there; I'll take it. Isn't this a pretty business
for Melvy to come bringing a sick tramp up here--on general
cleaning-day, too?"

"Aren't all days cleaning-days to you, Sue?" asked the judge,
playfully.

"When you are in the house," she answered sharply. Then she turned to
the doctor, who was starting up the stairs:

"If this boy is in for a long spell, I want him moved somewhere. I
can't have my carpets run over and my whole house smelling like a
hospital."

"Now, Susan," remonstrated the judge, gently, "