earance of his trap with deep and earnest
satisfaction. But he was not to be allowed to escape so easily. The sound
of wheels made the children look round; and some one suddenly called
out--'It's the Doctor!' The next moment he found himself, greatly to
his consternation, in the middle of a throng of excited young ladies,
all in extremely short skirts and all armed with hockey clubs, who were
clamouring loudly and persistently to know if Barbara Berkeley was out of
danger.

Probably it would never have happened if it had not been the last day
of the term, when a sense of unusual liberty prevailed. Certainly, if it
had been any other day the hockey team would not have been wandering round
by the front door at all, but would have gone straight to the nine-acre
field through the orchard at the back. But the Doctor knew nothing of all
this. He only realised that the girls were finishing what the boys had
begun, and that in another minute he should lose his temper very badly
indeed.

Most eager of all was a child with a freckled face and reddish-coloured
hair, who somehow seemed familiar to him, though he could not remember
where he had met her before. She came right up to where he stood
helplessly, with his right foot placed on the carriage-step; and she
raised her voice shrilly above all the others.

'May I see her before she gets worse?' she implored sentimentally. 'I
should never forgive myself, Mary Wells says I shouldn't, if anything
happened to her, and----'

The Doctor made a great effort and waved them off distractedly, just as
Margaret Hulme and some of the elder ones hurried on the scene and called
angrily to his tormentors. He seized the opportunity to spring to his
seat, and then turned and glared at them.

'See her before she gets worse?' he answered back furiously. 'If you want
to see her before you've done your best to finish her altogether, you'll
have to look sharp.'

Miss Finlayson suddenly appeared on the doorstep. Nobody knew how much she
had seen or heard, but she was looking exceedingly stern. She opened her
mouth to speak, just as Dr. Hurst perceived her and broke into a fresh
torrent of words. By this time he had lost the last scrap of his patience.

'What with rascally boys and hysterical _schoolgirls_,' he shouted,
seizing the whip and cracking it round his head, 'how can you expect me
to pull the case through?'

He tugged violently at the reins; the startled animal sprang forward, and
th