"What have you done?" interrupted the doctor. "I’ve kep’ ’er in bed and giv’ ’er ’Dinver’s Lung Tonic.’ My ’usband, ’e don’t ’old with doctors—’e’s a Plymouth Brother, and don’t seek advice——" The doctor growled out something about "nonsense," prefaced by a somewhat forcible adjective, then "All right! I’ll come. Where do you live?" After giving her address, the woman held out to him a little screw of paper. He waved it aside impatiently, saying, "Haven’t seen her yet," held the door open, and the woman hurried out. "I’ll come directly," he shouted after her. His heart was much softer than his manners. "These Plimmy brothers are the biggest lunatics going," he said to himself, "with their faith-healing and their providence-mongering. I’d like to dose the lot of them." The doctor was not accurate in his diagnosis of the sect in question, but in his own mind lumped together every sort of religious enthusiasm. * * * * * Matthew Moulder, baker, was an upright, God-fearing man, foreman to the baker—our little town boasts but one. He turned out excellent bread; moreover, he was a good husband, a conscientious if not affectionate father, and a diligent worshipper in that upper room, wherein assembled a handful of people of similar religious views. He indulged himself in few pleasures, and rather wondered at the frivolity of his neighbours, who took life with that cheerful philosophy still to be found in portions of England which yet remain to justify the description "merrie." His wife was meek-hearted, and easily ruled; she never questioned his authority, but having early laid to heart the maxim that "what a man doesn’t know can’t vex him," she was careful to vex Matthew as seldom as possible. How, then, did these two sedate and respectable persons come by such a child as their daughter Keturah? Keturah of the elf-locks and great wine-coloured eyes. Keturah, who danced and sang and giggled the live-long day; who yawned in sermons and played "handy-pandy" with herself, while her father uplifted his voice in prayer. Who turned up in the hunting-field when she ought to have been safe in school, ever ready to open gates for the "gentry," with dazzling smiles, showing the whitest of white teeth, and with curtsies that suggested drawing-rooms rather than the village lane. At the little school, which she attended with a fitfulness perplexing in the extreme to the worthy mistress, she did her lessons far better and more quickly than anybody else. There was no doubt about it, Keturah was a "character."