"Ah!" he thought, "I knew she didn't care any thing for me!" and he fell into a silent brown study which Hetty did not attempt to break. This was one among her many charms to Dr. Eben, that she was capable of sitting quietly by a person's side for long intervals of silence. The average woman, when she is in the company of even a single person, seems to consider herself derelict in duty, if conversation is not what she calls "kept up;" an instinctive phrase, which, by its universal use, is the bitterest comment on its own significance. Men have no such feeling. Two men will sit by each other's side, it may be for hours, in silence, and feel no derogation from good comradeship. Why should not women? The answer is too evident. Women have a perpetual craving to be recognized, to be admired; and a large part of their ceaseless chatter is no more nor less than a surface device to call your attention to them; as little children continually pull your gown to make you look at them. Hetty was incapable of this. She was a vivacious talker when she had any thing to say; but a most dogged holder of her tongue when she had not. In this instance she had nothing to say, and she did not speak: the doctor had so much to say that he did not speak, and they sat in silence till the shrill bell from the farmhouse door called them to dinner. As they walked slowly up to the house, the doctor said: "You don't wonder that I hate to go away from this lovely place, do you, Miss Gunn?" Any other woman but Hetty would have felt something which was in his tone, though not in his words. But Hetty answered bluntly: "Yes, I do wonder; it is very lovely here: but I should think you'd want to be at work; I do. I think we've had play-spell enough; for, after all, it hasn't been any thing but play-spell for you and me." "Now she despises me," thought poor Dr. Eben. "She hasn't any tolerance in her, anyhow," and he was grave and preoccupied all through dinner. VII. It was settled that they should set out for home a week from that day. "Only seven days left," said the doctor. "What can I do in that time?"