Next day, however, she resumed her original coldness of manner when the brother and sister called to pay their respects. She was simply polite, and no more, and after two or three words they retired, Emily Radstock becoming as stiff and formal as her new acquaintance. From that day Maria became very miserable. She was not avaricious, and did not fear her father losing his practice from any pecuniary motives, but it was pride that influenced her. Her father had for some years monopolized the parish, as his predecessor had for forty years before him; and now to behold a young unfledged physician setting up exactly opposite, and threatening to divide in time the business of the town, was dreadful. _The_ physician of the town, sounded better, too, than one of the doctors, and altogether it was a most unpleasant affair. Maria's place was now always the bow-window. She had no amusement but to watch the opposite house, to see if patients came, or if Edward Radstock made any attempt to call about and introduce himself. But for some time she had the satisfaction of remarking, that not a soul called at the house, save the butcher, the baker, and other contributors to the interior comforts of man, and Maria began to feel the hope that Edward Radstock would totally fail in his endeavors to introduce himself. She remarked, however, that the young man took it very quietly; he sat by his sister's side while she played the piano, or with a book and a cigar at the open window, or took Emily a drive in his gig; always, when he remarked Maria at the open window, bowing with provoking courtesy, nothing daunted by her coldness of manner, or her pretense of not noticing his politeness. One day Mr. Walker was out, he had been called to a distance to see a patient, who was very seriously ill, when Maria sat at the bow-window looking up the street. Suddenly she saw a boy come running down on their side of the way; she knew him by his bright buttons, light jacket, and gold lace. It was the page of the Perkinses, a family with a host of little children, who, from constant colds, indigestions, and fits of illness, caused by too great a liking for the pleasures of the table, which a fond mother had not the heart to restrain, were continually on Mr. Walker's books. The boy rang violently at the bell, and Maria opened the parlor-door and listened. "Is Mr. Walker at home?" said the boy, scarcely able to speak from want of breath. "No," replied the maid who had opened the door. "He will be home directly," said Maria, advancing. "Oh! but missus can't wait, there's little Peter been and swallowed a marble, and the baby's took with fits," and away rushed the boy across the road to the hated rival's house.