Of Mrs. Randolph’s friendliness one felt less certain; she had even a repellent manner with strangers; she must weigh them in the balance before acceptance, no taking on trust with her. A trim little body, keen of perception and sharp of tongue, she gave one, on meeting her, a sense of openly taking one’s measure. Sometimes you could fairly see her making up her mind; and her “Humph!” was eloquent of her unflattering conclusion. Although really kind-hearted, her range of sympathies, when I first met her, seemed narrow, her judgments harsh and often faulty; it seemed easy for her to condemn and sentence others before she had half the evidence. As time passed it was a study to see her growing and expanding under the Doctor’s more tolerant influence and example, and with her increasing knowledge of life and human sorrows. Sometimes it would be just a mild, “Oh, Ethel, Ethel!” as she would rail at something or somebody; sometimes he would laugh indulgently at her caustic and often accurate “sizing up” of persons who could not, as she would boast, “pull the wool” over _her_ eyes, as they could over “Dearie’s”; again he would drop a word or two that would enlighten her--some extenuating explanation; some recital of good in the one she was condemning. If she pried about any of his patients, his lips would be sealed, but though replying to her abrupt, unwarrantable questions so as not to betray professional secrets, he would, in so doing, help her to view more charitably what she was so readily inclined to condemn. There were times, though, when she would close her lips with a snap, unconvinced, though silent; again she would say she did not believe he knew what he was talking about; or, if he knew, he himself did not believe what he was saying; but more often she would stop her tirade and make a wild dash at him, patting his benevolent face as she exclaimed, “You old Dearie! You think the whole world is as good as you are!” and sometimes she would include, “You and Dr. Arnold--she’s ’most as good as you, but not quite.” And he would smile at her as one would at a spoiled child.