ullenly, with a
scowl on his face:

"Doctor Wainwright, I'm sorry to bother you, but this bill has been
standing a long time. It will accommodate me very much if you can let me
have something on account next Monday. I've got engagements to
meet--pressing engagements, sir."

"I'll do my best, Potter," said the doctor. Where he was to get any
money by Monday he did not know, but, as Potter said, the money was due.
He thrust the bill into his coat pocket and drove on, half his pleasure
in again seeing his child clouded by this encounter. Pulling his gray
mustache, the world growing dark as the sun went down, the father's
spirits sank to zero. He had peeped at the bill. It was larger than he
had supposed, as bills are apt to be. Two hundred dollars! And he
couldn't borrow, and there was nothing more to mortgage. And Grace's
coming back had led him to sanction the purchase of a new piano, to be
paid for by instalments. The piano had been seen going home a few days
before, and every creditor the doctor had, seeing its progress, had been
quick to put in his claim, reasoning very naturally that if Doctor
Wainwright could afford to buy a new piano, he could equally afford to
settle his old debts, and must be urged to do so.

The old mare quickened her pace as she saw her stable door ahead of
her. The lines hung limp and loose in her master's hands. Under the
pressure of distress about this dreadful two hundred dollars he had
forgotten to be glad that Grace was again with them.

Doctor Wainwright was an easy-going as well as a hopeful sort of man,
but he was an honest person, and he knew that creditors have a right to
be insistent. It distressed him to drag around a load of debt. For days
together the poor doctor had driven a long way round rather than to pass
Potter's store on the main street, the dread of some such encounter and
the shame of his position weighing heavily on his soul. It was the
harder for him that he had made it a rule never to appear anxious before
his wife. Mrs. Wainwright had enough to bear in being ill and in pain.
The doctor braced himself and threw back his shoulders as if casting off
a load, as the mare, of her own accord, stopped at the door.

The house was full of light. Merry voices overflowed in rippling speech
and laughter. Out swarmed the children to meet papa, and one sweet girl
kissed him over and over. "Here I am," she said, "your middle daughter,
dearest. Here I am."

CHAPTER III.