Dr. Holbrook knew very little of girls and their peculiarities, but he thought this note, with its P. S., decidedly girlish. Still he made no comment, either verbal or mental, so flurried was he with the thought that the evil he so much dreaded had come upon him at last. Had it been left to his choice, he would far rather have extracted every one of Madeline Clyde’s teeth, than have set himself up before her as some horrid ogre, asking what she knew and what she did not know. But the choice was not his, and, turning at last to the boy, he said shortly, “Tell her to come.” Most men would have sought for a glimpse of the face under the bonnet tied with blue, but Dr. Holbrook did not care a picayune whether it were ugly or fair, though it _did_ strike him that the voice was singularly sweet, which, after the boy had delivered the message, said to the old man, “Oh, I am so glad; now, grandpa, we’ll go home. I know you must be tired.” Very slowly Sorrel trotted down the street, the blue ribbons fluttering in the wind, and one little ungloved hand carefully adjusting about the old man’s shoulders the ancient camlet cloak which had done duty for many a year, and was needed on this chill April day. The doctor saw all this, and the impression left upon his mind was, that Candidate No. 1 was probably a nice kind of a girl, and very good to her grandfather. But what should he ask her, and how demean himself towards her, and would it be well to “cut her,” as Colonel Lewis had advised him to do to one or two of the first? Monday afternoon was frightfully near, he thought, as this was only Saturday; and then, feeling that he must be prepared, he brought out from the trunk, where, since his arrival in Devonshire, they had been quietly lying, books enough to have frightened an elder person than poor little Madeline Clyde, riding slowly home, and wishing so much that she’d had a glimpse of Dr. Holbrook, so as to know what he was like, and hoping he would give her a chance to repeat some of the many pages of Geography and History which she knew by heart. How she would have trembled could she have seen the formidable volumes heaped upon the doctor’s table and waiting for her. There were French and Latin grammars, Hamilton’s Metaphysics, Olmstead’s Philosophy, Day’s Algebra, Butler’s Analogy, and many other books, into which poor Madeline had never so much as looked. Arranging them in a row, and half wishing himself back again in the days when he had studied them, the doctor went out to visit his patients, of which there were so many that Madeline Clyde entirely escaped his mind, nor did she trouble him again until the dreaded Monday came, and the hands of his watch pointed to two. “One hour more,” he said to himself, just as the roll of wheels and a cloud of dust announced the arrival of some one.