“It's Miss Ferney. What a nuisance, on our last day! But I forgot, I asked her to come. If she stays very long, just tell a little fib, won't you, and say you need me for something?” “It will not be a fib,” said the Doctor quietly, “I do need you.” Miss Lady met her caller at the front porch and relieved her of the jar she was carrying. “It's pickles,” said Miss Ferney, a withered little woman whose small, nibbling face suggested a squirrel's. “I thought having company you might need 'em. Don't know though. City people may be too aristocratic to eat country pickles.” “The idea, Miss Ferney! Don't you sell them in the city all the time?” “Yes, under labels. City people lay stress on labels. When I was a child, I wasn't allowed to eat things that was labeled. I hear he's going?” “Who?” “Your Doctor. Don't see how you've ever stood him so long.” “Oh! you don't know Doctor Queerington! It's been a great privilege to have him here, He is a very distinguished man, Miss Ferney, and so kind and good!” “Good or bad, they are all the same to me. Just as soon have a fly under my mosquito bar as a man buzzing around in my house. When's he going?” “To-morrow. Will that be too soon for you to come over?” “No, I'm ready to come. Sis 'Lizzie will be sure to try some of those new-fangled receipts and spoil a bushel or two of cucumbers, but I said I'd come and I will. What is this Jimpson is telling me about your taking the examinations for the county school?” Miss Lady sighed: “I may have to teach; I don't know.” “Sell off some more land. You don't need a hundred acres.” “We've sold too much already! It will be the house next. I am determined to hold on to Thornwood if the roof tumbles in on my head!” “I know how you feel,” said Miss Ferney whose sentiments ran to real estate. “I've been saving every nickel I made for nearly twenty years to buy back our place. From all the talk we heard last spring, Sis Lizzie rather allowed you was going to get married.” “Well, I am not.” “I am glad of it. Folks are keen enough to believe in every beau a girl has 'til she's thirty. After that they don't believe in any of them. Sis was misled by what they told her over at the Wickers'.” “What did they tell her?” asked Miss Lady, training a rebellious moon vine up the trellis. “Oh, they told her about that young city fellow you was rampaging all over the country with last spring. Mrs. Wicker said he hadn't a thought in his head but you. That he wore her plumb out telling her about you, just as if she hadn't help raise you on a bottle!” Miss Lady still found the vine absorbing, but she took time to say over her shoulder: “Tell your sister and Mrs. Wicker that that young man has gone to China.”