“Isn't it enough?” “No; I don't think it is. Why didn't you tell him that you didn't want any gratitude?”. “Not _want_ any?” she demanded. “Oh!” said Dr. Morrell, “I didn't know but you thought it was enough to _give.”_ Annie believed that he was making fun of her, and she tried to make her resentful silence dignified; but she only answered sadly: “No; it isn't enough for me. Besides, he made me see that you can't give sympathy where you can't receive it.” “Well, that _is_ bad,” said the doctor, and he laughed again. “Excuse me,” he added. “I see the point. But why don't you forget it?” “Forget it!” “Yes. If you can't help it, why need you worry about it?” She gave a kind of gasp of astonishment. “Do you really think that would be right?” She edged a little away from Dr. Morrell, as if with distrust. “Well, no; I can't say that I do,” he returned thoughtfully, without seeming to have noticed her withdrawal. “I don't suppose I was looking at the moral side. It's rather out of my way to do that. If a physician let himself get into the habit of doing that, he might regard nine-tenths of the diseases he has to treat as just penalties, and decline to interfere.” She fancied that he was amused again, rather than deeply concerned, and she determined to make him own his personal complicity in the matter if she could. “Then you _do_ feel sympathy with your patients? You find it necessary to do so?” The doctor thought a moment. “I take an interest in their diseases.” “But you want them to get well?” “Oh, certainly. I'm bound to do all I can for them as a physician.” “Nothing more?” “Yes; I'm sorry for them--for their families, if it seems to be going badly with them.” “And--and as--as--Don't you care at all for your work as a part of what every one ought to do for others--as humanity, philan--” She stopped the offensive word. “Well, I can't say that I've looked at it in that light exactly,” he answered. “I suspect I'm not very good at generalising my own relations to others, though I like well enough to speculate in the abstract. But don't you think Mr. Peck has overlooked one important fact in his theory? What about the people who have grown rich from being poor, as most Americans have? They have the same experiences, and why can't they sympathise with those who have remained poor?” “I never thought of that. Why didn't I ask him that?” She lamented so sincerely that the doctor laughed again. “I think that Mr. Peck--” “Oh no! oh no!” said the doctor, in an entreating, coaxing tone, expressive of a satiety with the subject that he might very well have felt; and he ended with another laugh, in which, after a moment of indignant self-question, she joined him. “Isn't that delicious?” he exclaimed; and she involuntarily slowed her pace with his.