rned a little red from sheer nervousness; and the girls immediately
decided that she was afraid of the youngest child in the school, and began
to giggle with one accord. Barbara sighed again at this new interruption;
and raising herself on her knees, she sat back on her heels.

'Oh, it's you!' she observed, shaking the hair out of her eyes. 'Why
didn't you say so? I thought it was just some one who wanted to bother.'

'You've got to go and see the doctor in Finny's study. Make haste, Babe,'
said Ruth, who was smarting under the giggle, and wanted to get back into
the other room among her equals. But the Babe showed no signs of making
haste.

'Why have I got to see the doctor?' she asked, opening her eyes. 'I'm not
ill or anything; and I want to finish my letter home. Don't you think it's
a mistake?'

'No, I don't,' said Ruth, forgetting her nervousness all at once, and
lifting the child boldly off the floor. 'You've got to be examined to
see if you can do gymnastics, that's all. He's in Finny's study, waiting
for you.' She carried her playfully under her arm and set her down on
the further side of the curtain. Whatever the other tiresome children
might think of her, she knew that the Babe never criticised her, and that
gave her confidence.

Barbara was still a little dubious about the sense of seeing a doctor
when she did not feel ill; but she trotted across the hall obediently
and went into Finny's study. She was only half conscious of what she
was doing, for she had been taken from her letter too abruptly to have had
time to wake up properly; and Babs always required plenty of time to
wake up, when she had been absorbed in anything. So the solemn-looking
young man, who sat in the low arm-chair, was a little upset when she not
only gave him her hand to shake but also put up her face to be kissed
as a matter of course.

Dr. Wilson Hurst, in spite of Kit's idea of his age, was only twenty-eight
and quite young enough to feel extremely bashful. He jerked back his head
suddenly; and Barbara woke up.

'Oh, I'm so sorry,' she said, smiling. 'I wasn't thinking. Of course you
don't want to be kissed; I shouldn't have dreamed of kissing you at home,
you know, because the boys feel just like you about kissing. But Ruth
kisses me such lots, and everybody seems to kiss everybody else here, so I
suppose I've rather got into the way of----'

Here Miss Finlayson said 'Hush!' very softly; and the doctor pulled
something so qu