as young as I
do. We shouldn't hear such a many complaints."

"Very bad for the profession, Mrs. Marrable! This isn't a good part of
the world for my trade, as it is, and if everyone was like you, I should
have to put the shutters up. Well!--you see how it is? Look at Miss
Grahame--Sister Nora! Goes up to London the picture of health, and gets
fever! Old lady from some nasty unwholesome corner by Tottenham Court
Road comes down to Chorlton, and gets younger every day!"

"I was going to ask about Sister Nora, doctor--what the latest news was
saying."

"She'll make a good recovery, as things go. But that means she won't be
herself again for a twelvemonth, if then!" Granny Marrable looked so
unhappy over this, that the doctor took in a reef. "Less if we're
lucky--less if we're lucky!" said he. "She's being very well looked
after. Dalrymple's a good man."

"I'm glad you should know him to speak well of, for the lady's sake.
She's a good lady, and kind. It was through her the little boy Davy came
to the Cottage. My little Davy, I always call him."

"So does t'other old lady--she your daughter's got there now. You'll
scratch each other's eyes out over that young monkey when you come to
meet, Mrs. Marrable."

"There now, doctor, you will always have your joke. Ruth--my
daughter--is quite beside her judgment about the old soul. What like is
she, doctor, to your thinking?"

"Well--your daughter's right about her." He paused a moment, and then
added, meaningly:--"So far as being a very--very _taking_ sort of old
person goes."

Granny Marrable, rather absorbed in her descendant's relations with his
bottle, found in due course an opportunity to answer, looking up at the
doctor:--"A very taking old person? But what, then, is to seek in her?
Unless she be bad of heart or dishonest." Her old misgivings about
Dave's home influences, revived, had more share in the earnestness of
her tone than any misgivings about her daughter. And was not there the
awful background of the convict?

"Not a bit of it--not a bit of it! Right as a trivet, I should say, as
far as that goes! But ..." He stopped and touched his forehead,
portentously.

"Ah--the poor soul! Now is that true?"

"I think you may take it of me that is so." The doctor threw his
professional manner into this. After a moment he added, as a mere human
creature:--"Off her chump! Loose in the top story!" A moment after, for
professional reassurance:--"But quite harmless--q