f the ladies came and asked after
Mrs. Maynard, whose restless night they had somehow heard of. When she
came out of the dining-room' Miss Gleason waylaid her in the hall.

"Dr. Breen," she said, in a repressed tumult, "I hope you won't give
way. For woman's sake, I hope you won't! You owe it to yourself not to
give way! I'm sure Mrs. Maynard is as well off in your hands as she can
be. If I did n't think so, I should be the last to advise your being
firm; but, feeling as I do, I do advise it most strongly. Everything
depends on it."

"I don't know what you mean, Miss Gleason," said Grace.

"I'm glad it hasn't come to you yet. If it was a question of mere
professional pride, I should say, By all means call him at once. But
I feel that a great deal more is involved. If you yield, you make it
harder for other women to help themselves hereafter, and you confirm
such people as these in their distrust of female physicians. Looking at
it in a large way, I almost feel that it would be better for her to die
than for you to give up; and feeling as I do"--

"Are you talking of Mrs. Maynard?" asked Grace.

"They are all saying that you ought to give up the case to Dr.
Mulbridge. But I hope you won't. I should n't blame you for calling in
another female physician"--

"Thank you," answered Grace. "There is no danger of her dying. But it
seems to me that she has too many female physicians already. In this
house I should think it better to call a man." She left the barb to
rankle in Miss Gleason's breast, and followed her mother to her room,
who avenged Miss Gleason by a series of inquisitional tortures, ending
with the hope that, whatever she did, Grace would not have that silly
creature's blood on her hands. The girl opened her lips to attempt
some answer to this unanswerable aspiration, when the unwonted sound of
wheels on the road without caught her ear.

"What is that, Grace?" demanded her mother, as if Grace were guilty of
the noise.

"Mr. Libby," answered Grace, rising.

"Has he come for you?"

"I don't know. But I am going down to see him."

At sight of the young man's face, Grace felt her heart lighten. He
had jumped from his buggy, and was standing at his smiling ease on
the piazza steps, looking about as if for some one, and he brightened
joyfully at her coming. He took her hand with eager friendliness, and
at her impulse began to move away to the end of the piazza with her. The
ladies had not yet descended to