Before her lay a book on geometry, and, engrossed by study, she was unobservant of Dr. Hartwell's entrance. Walking up to the grate, he warmed his fingers, and then, with his hands behind him, stood still on the rug, regarding his protegee attentively. He looked precisely as he had done more than three years before, when he waited at Mrs. Martin's, watching little Johnny and his nurse. The colorless face seemed as if chiseled out of ivory, and stern gravity, blended with bitterness, was enthroned on the lofty, unfurrowed brow. He looked at the girl intently, as he would have watched a patient to whom he had administered a dubious medicine and felt some curiosity concerning the result. "Beulah, put up your book and make the tea, will you?" She started up, and, seating herself before the urn, said joyfully: "Good-evening! I did not know you had come home. You look cold, sir." "Yes, it is deucedly cold; and, to mend the matter, Mazeppa must needs slip on the ice in the gutter and lame himself. Knew, too, I should want him again to-night." He drew a chair to the table and received his tea from her hand, for it was one of his whims to dismiss Mrs. Watson and the servants at this meal, and have only Beulah present. "Who is so ill as to require a second visit to-night?" She very rarely asked anything relative to his professional engagements, but saw that he was more than usually interested. "Why, that quiet little Quaker friend of yours, Clara Sanders, will probably lose her grandfather this time. He had a second paralytic stroke to-day, and I doubt whether he survives till morning." "Are any of Clara's friends with her?" asked Beulah quickly. "Some two or three of the neighbors. What now?" he continued as she rose from the table. "I am going to get ready and go with you when you return." "Nonsense! The weather is too disagreeable; and, besides, you can do no good; the old man is unconscious. Don't think of it." "But I must think of it, and what is more, you must carry me, if you please. I shall not mind the cold, and I know Clara would rather have me with her, even though I could render no assistance. Will you carry me? I shall thank you very much." She stood on the threshold. "And if I will not carry you?" he answered questioningly. "Then, sir, though sorry to disobey you, I shall be forced to walk there." "So I supposed. You may get ready." "Thank you." She hurried off to wrap up for the ride and acquaint Mrs. Watson with the cause of her temporary absence. On re-entering the study she found the doctor lying on the sofa, with one hand over his eyes. Without removing it he tossed a letter to her, saying: