eaved a
sigh.

"Yes, he is late," said the doctor, looking at his watch. "Not going
anywhere else for you, was he?"

"Oh, no, my dear; he was coming straight back."

"Humph!" ejaculated the doctor; "thoughtless young dog! I want my tea."

"He can't be long now," said Aunt Hannah.

"Humph! Can't be. That boy's always wool-gathering instead of thinking
of his duties."

Aunt Hannah's brow wrinkled and she looked five years older as she rose
softly to go to the window, and look out.

"That will not bring him here a bit sooner, Hannah," said the doctor
drily. "I dare say he has gone in at the rectory, and Syme has asked
him to stay."

"Oh, no, my dear, I don't think he would do that, knowing that we should
be waiting."

"Never did, I suppose," said the doctor.

Aunt Hannah was silent. She could not deny the impeachment, and she sat
there with her work in her lap, thinking about how late it was; how
hungry the doctor would be, and how cross it would make him, for he
always grew irritable when kept waiting for his meals.

Then she began to think about going and making the tea, and about the
chicken, which would be done to death, and the doctor did not like
chickens dry.

Just then there was a diversion.

Eliza came to the door.

"If you please 'm, cook says shall she send up the chicken? It's
half-past six."

Aunt Hannah looked at the doctor, and the doctor looked at his watch.

"Wait a minute," he said; and then: "No, I'll give him another quarter
of an hour."

"What a tantrum Martha will be in," muttered Eliza, as she left the
room.

"Oh, that poor chicken!" thought Aunt Hannah, and then aloud:--

"I hope Vane has not met with any accident."

"Pshaw! What accident could he meet with in walking to the village with
a bottle of liniment and back, unless--"

"Yes?" cried Aunt Hannah, excitedly; "unless what, my dear?"

"He has opened the bottle and sat down by the roadside to drink it all."

"Oh, my dear, surely you don't think that Vane would be so foolish."

"I don't know," cried the doctor, "perhaps so. He is always
experimentalising over something."

"But," cried Aunt Hannah, with a horrified look, "it was liniment for
outward application only!"

"Exactly: that's what I mean," said the doctor. "He has not been
content without trying the experiment of how it would act rubbed on
inside instead of out."

"Then that poor boy may be lying somewhere by the roadside in the
agonies of