In age he was nearer fifty than forty, and in color dark rather than light. But no one ever spoke of him as young or old, light or dark. He was simply Dr. Izard, the pride and the dread of the village, the central point of its intellectual life, on whose eccentricities judgment was suspended because through him fame had come to the village and its humble name been carried far and wide. Polly, who feared nobody, but who had for this man, as her rather unwilling benefactor, a wholesome respect, was looking down when the stranger first saw her. The smile which was never long absent from her lips lingered yet in the depths of the dimple that was turned toward the doctor, but the rest of her face showed emotion and a hint of seriousness which was by no means unbecoming to her poetic features. “You are very good,” she was saying. “I have often wondered why you were so good to such a little flyaway as I am. But I shall surely remember all you have said and follow your advice as nearly as possible.” There was unexpected coldness in the doctor’s reply: “I have advised nothing but what any friend of yours must subscribe to. The woman with whom you are staying is a good woman, but the home she can give you is no longer suitable for a girl who has come, as you say you have, into possession of considerable property. You must find another; and since the house over our heads is a good one, I have ventured to offer it to you for a sum which your man of business certainly will not regard as high, considering its advantages of size and location.” “By location do you mean its close proximity to the graveyard?” she inquired, with a _naïve_ inclination of her coquettish head. “I should say, myself, though I never fear anything, that its location is against it.” His eye, which had wandered from hers, came back with a stern intentness. “Since I have lived here for twenty years with no other outlook than the graves you see, I cannot be said to be a good judge of the matter. To me the spot has become a necessity, and if you should make the arrangement I suggest, it must be with the understanding that this room is to be reserved for my use as long as I live, for I could never draw a free breath elsewhere.” “Nor would anyone wish you to,” said she. “This solitary room, with its dangling skulls and queer old images, its secrecy and darkness, and the graves pressing up almost to your window, seems a part of Dr. Izard. I could not imagine you in a trim office with a gig at the door and a man to drive it. No, it would rob us of half our faith in you, to see you enjoying life like other folks. You must stay here if only because my mother, lying over there in her solitary grave, would be lonely were your face to fail to appear every night and morning in your open doorway.” Her hand, which had paused in its restless action, pointed over her shoulder to the silent yard without. The physician’s eye followed it, and the words of reproof died upon his tongue.