doctor looked ruefully from the black to
the angry spinster.

"What means this, madame? My wig--"

"I want you to go at once to see a sick woman at Mrs. Swanwick's."

"I will not. I am sent for in haste. In an hour or two I will go, or
this afternoon."

"I don't believe you. You must go now--now. Who is it is ill?" People
paused, astonished and laughing.

"It is Citizen Jefferson. He is ill, very ill."

"I am glad of it. He must wait--this citizen."

"But he has a chill--_un diable_ of a chill."

"If the devil himself had a chill,--Lord, but it would refresh him!--he
would have to wait."

He tried to pass by. She seized the rein of his horse. Her blood was up,
and at such times few men cared to face her.

"You will go," she cried, "and at once, or--there is a tale I heard
about you last year in London from Dr. Abernethy. That highwayman--you
know the story. Your wig I shall keep. It is freshly powdered. Lord,
man, how bald you are!"

He grew pale around his rouge. "You would not, surely."

"Would I not? Come, now, I won't tell--oh, not every one. Be a good
doctor. I have quarreled with Dr. Rush--and come and see me to-morrow. I
have a horrid rheum. And as to Citizen Jefferson, he won't die, more's
the pity."

He knew from the first he must go, and by good luck no one he knew was
in sight to turn him into ridicule for the pleasure of the great
Federalist dames.

"Give him his wig, Tom." The little doctor sadly regarded the dusty wig.
Then he readjusted his head-gear and said he would go.

"Now, that's a good doctor. Come," and she rode off again after him, by
no means inclined to set him free to change his mind.

At Mrs. Swanwick's door, as he got out of his chaise, she said: "This
lady speaks only French. She is the Vicomtesse de Courval. And now, mind
you, Doctor, no citizenesses or any such Jacobin nonsense."

"_A votre service, madame_," he said, and rapped discreetly low, feeling
just at present rather humble and as meek as Ca Ira.

Mistress Wynne waited until the door closed behind him, and then rode
away refreshed. Turning to her black groom, she said, "If you tell, Tom,
I will kill you."

"Yes, missus."

"At all events, he won't bleed her," she reflected, "and he has more
good sense than most of them. That young fellow is a fine figure of a
man. I wonder what kind of clerk Hugh will make of him. I must have him
to dine."

In the hall Dr. Chovet met Schmidt, who knew him, as, in fact, h