"For the fame of the cure had gone forth, with all the exaggerations common to a country place, and wealthy old Tomkins grew at last fat, as he sat at home gnawing his nails with annoyance at seeing his practice become less year by year, till a call grew to be something unusual; and making a virtue of necessity, he told a crony, one evening in confidence, that with so many new-fangled ideas in medicine the profession was going to the dogs, and he was glad to say he was not called out now one night in a month; while as to meeting that upstart, Ross, in consultation, he would not do it to save his life--and he might have added, anybody else's. "But John Ross was not proud in his prosperity, and would at any time have stretched out the hand of good fellowship to the old doctor, could he have been sure that it would have been taken. "The Ross family found fast friends in the Westerns; and it was at one of the dinner parties at the Hall, that after seriously speaking to his friends of the debt of obligation he was under to Mr Ross, and thanking him again as the instrument, under God's providence, of giving them back their child to life, that, to give a livelier tone to the conversation, the squire related an anecdote he professed to have heard a few days before, in an encounter which took place between the sexton of the old church, and the old gentleman doing duty at the new. "`Ah!' said the first old man, chuckling with triumph, `you don't have half so many funerals in your yard as I do in mine.' "`No,' said the other, `and somehow they seem to be falling off year by year. My place isn't hardly worth holding now. The town gets a deal too healthy.' "`It does so,' said the first speaker. `I'm nearly ruined, and can't make it out anyhow--can you?' "`No,' said the other, `it's past me'--`and then the two old fellows went chattering and grumbling off,' continued Mr Western; `and if any one wishes to know the reason of the falling away, he must ask our friend the doctor there; though he will be sure to deny that he has had anything to do with it.' "`There's the bell again, dear,' said Mrs Ross one day, `and if it wasn't for knowing that you are wanted for some poor suffering creature, I believe I should exclaim against it as being a perfect nuisance. You never now seem to get a meal in peace.' "`Oh! yes, I do,' said Mr Ross smiling. `The bell does its share of work, though, certainly. By the way though, my dear, you never feel any dread in having the bell answered now, do you?' "`Dread? no; what a question!' said Mrs Ross. `What made you say that?' "`I was only thinking of a few years ago, when a ring at the bell sometimes caused one's heart to beat, lest it should be some hungry creditor.' "Mrs Ross sighed, and then smiled, saying, `and all the rest has come of patience.' "`And work,' said her husband.