Produced by Melissa McDaniel, Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) Transcriber's note: Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Words printed in italics in the original document are represented here between underscores, as in _text_. MAVIS OF GREEN HILL BY FAITH BALDWIN (MRS. HUGH HAMLIN CUTHRELL) BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1921, BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) _To_ JEAN WICK _In Gratitude and Affection_ MAVIS OF GREEN HILL CHAPTER I GREEN HILL, June A new doctor has arrived in Green Hill! Sarah told me so this morning when she brought in my breakfast. She set the tray down with an agitated thump, and after her strong arms had raised me a little higher among the pillows, she stepped back, folded her hands beneath her apron, and fixed me with a portentous eye. "Now do try and relish your breakfast, Miss Mavis," she coaxed, "there's a good girl!" An undercurrent of excitement colored her tone. I looked upon her with suspicion. But I know my Sarah. Like Fate, and the village fire-company, she is not to be hurried. Very casually, I reached for my glass of milk. Years of lying comparatively flat on a useless back tend to the development of patience as a necessity. "What time is it?" I inquired conversationally. "Past nine." I set the glass aside, and bit reflectively into a crisp triangle of toast. Since I've become so clever at eating and drinking, there's a sense of adventure about these commonplace functions which no whole person could ever comprehend. Sarah, busying herself with details of window-shades and counterpanes, watching me meanwhile from the corner of her eye, waited until I had turned indifferently to my pillows again, before making the following terse but thrilling remark. "Your pink rose-bush's come into blossom, Miss Mavis." Here was news indeed! My unconcern took unto itself wings and flew away. "Not really!" I cried, "Oh, Sarah, how perfectly darling of her to waken so early!" Sarah, accustomed to my extravagant fashion of endowing all growing things with distinct personalities, nodded gravely. And then, with all the majesty of Jove--if one may picture that deity as female, fifty, and New England incarnate--she launched her thunderbolt of Green Hill gossip. "That young doctor--him that was to come from the city to help Doctor McAllister with his patien's--he's here!" There was more truth than enunciation in Sarah's neglect of that final "t" in patients. Our village doctor is long on wisdom, but short of temper. I reached out for the morning paper, lying on my bedside table, and rustled it in dismissal.