“_Dr. Willet!_” repeated Susan. “Yes, Dr. Willet, who, it seems, and reached Greyrock in the stagecoach this morning, and after resting himself had hired a horse and started to ride to The Breezes, where he was going to pay a long promised visit to his friend and neighbor, Commodore Bruce! There! what do you think of that? If your father, or if the doctor had been five minutes earlier or later they must have missed each other, for the doctor had just reached that part of the road where it turns from the river ’pike to enter the mountain pass leading to The Breezes! There! and if your father had missed him he would have to have ridden thirty miles to Greyrock, and thirty miles back, making sixty altogether, before he would have got a doctor to poor old Ann Whitlock. But there he met Dr. Willet right in the very nick of time. Now, what do you think of _that_, Em?” “It was astonishing and most fortunate,” said the girl; but her thoughts reverted to the more astonishing news she had in store for her mother. “Well, you know as both was a-going of it as hard as they ever could go, they all but rid over each other before they knew it; and then they were so glad to see each other, and John thanked Dr. Willet for the hand he had in getting of him such a good situation as he’s got now; and Dr. Willet asked John how all the family was, and then when John told him all was well and hearty save Ann Whitlock, which had just fell down in a fit, why, Dr. Willet just turned his horse’s head immediate, and said he would come and look after the poor woman, whom he had known in old times as a skilful sick-nurse. So about an hour after I had seen John ride away, to be gone all night, after the Greyrock doctor, you may just fancy my astonishment to see him come riding in with Dr. Willet. Why, I rubbed my eyes—as much expecting to see the President as he!” “But what did he say about poor Auntie Whitlock? Did he say her attack was dangerous—fatal?” anxiously inquired Em. “He said it was a paralytic stroke. She might get over it or she might not; and he gave most particular directions how to treat her, and said as how he would see her every day during his stay at The Breezes. We will all do the best we can for her, Em., the same as if she was my mother and your grandmother; but, Lord! child, when a woman gets to be seventy-five what can you expect but her removal to a better life?” “Yes, mother,” sighed Em; for she was as yet too young, too much in love with this present life to think very seriously of that which is to come. “Here’s father and the boys. Now put supper on the table, Em.!” said Susan Palmer as John and his two lads entered the kitchen, which, since the weather had turned cold, was used as a dining-room as well. “Now, Miss Runaway! And where have you been all day?” inquired John Palmer good-humoredly as soon as he saw Em. “Only to the island, father, dear,” she answered.