"Oh, you know what I mean," exclaimed Hetty, "I mean, I hope Sally will not have to bring you as a physician. Of course, there is nothing to hinder your coming here at any time, if you like," she added, in a kindly but indifferent tone. "But I should not want to come alone," said the doctor. "No," said Hetty, reflectively. "It would be dull, I shouldn't like it myself, to be here all alone. The sea is the loneliest of things in the universe, I think. The fields and the woods and the hills all look as if they had good fellowship with each other perpetually; but the great, blank, bare sea, looks for ever alone; and sometimes the waves seem to me to run up on the shore as fiercely as starved wolves leaping on prey!" "Not on this little comfortable beach, though," said Dr. Eben. "Oh, no!" replied Hetty, "I did not mean such sea-shore as this. But even here, I should find it sad if I were alone." "All places are sad if one is alone, Miss Gunn," replied the doctor, in a pensive tone, rare with him. Hetty turned a surprised glance at him, and did not speak for a moment. Then she said: "Yes; but nobody need be alone: there are always plenty of people to take into one's house. If you are lonely, why don't you get somebody to live with you, or you might be married," she added, in as purely matter-of-fact a tone, as she would have said, "you might take a journey," or "you might build on a wing to your house." This suggestion sounded oddly enough, coming so soon from the lips of the woman whom the doctor had just been ardently wishing he could marry; but its cool and unembarrassed tone was sufficient to corroborate his utmost disheartenment.