iskers.

"No," said Gilbert, smiling. "My mother spoke it, but she did not
teach us children."

"Och, och, well, well," he said, reassuringly. "It will not be the way
of the young Canadians, and perhaps it is better. Come away, now, come
away! I would be finding a poor tramp body down the glen here, ech,
ech, the peety of it! The peety of it!"

He hobbled away ahead, talking volubly. Gilbert glanced back as he
followed, but the princess in the violet gown had disappeared.

"Eh, now, it would jist be the good Lord that would be sending him to
me, indeed. Eh, the Almighty would be giving me everything in the
world that I could be wanting. But I will jist be an awful complainin'
body, and sometimes I would be saying, if I would only have the chance
to help some one. That's it!" he cried, turning a flashing eye upon
Gilbert. "That will be the only thing worth while in this world. Eh,
it is you that will be finding that out, Dr. Allen, and a happy man you
will be, oh, yes, indeed. It is the doctor bodies that has the
chance." He stopped and turned again. "Eh, did ye ever think He would
be a doctor Himself?" he added, in an awed whisper. "Yes, yes, most
folks now would be thinkin' He would jist be a preacher. But I would
be rastlin' things out sometimes at night, when the rheumatics would be
keeping me awake. The rheumatics would be a fine thing to make a body
think, doctor, oh, yes, a fine thing, and I would be wishing one night
that old Dr. Williams would be curing me, and then I would be rastlin'
it out that He would jist be a doctor Himself. Oh, hoch, yes, yes,
indeed it would be wonderful; yes, yes, wonderful!"

The young man regarded him curiously. Some strange emotion stirred in
his heart: a memory of those days when his mother made the Great
Physician a very real person to him. It seemed so long ago that he had
almost forgotten, and yet he experienced a feeling as though he had
suddenly come face to face with a long-lost friend.

"I am afraid such rheumatism as you must endure would keep me from
thinking of anything but myself," he said, his professional eye taking
in the signs of the painful disease in the old man's crippled frame.

His companion gave a joyous laugh. "Hoots! It will jist be a wee
tickle sometimes. But I will be an awful complainin' body, doctor.
Old Dr. Williams could be telling you I would be a terrible burden to
him, indeed; and you will be finding me a bother. Yes, o