Sally cast her a withering glance. Elsie devoted herself suddenly to George. "Go down and lure them into the garden," pleaded Sally, presently. Elsie obligingly picked up her son and departed, but Sally, watching her go, was infuriated to notice that a mild request from George's nurse, who met them in the hall, apparently drove all thoughts of Sally's predicament from the little mother's mind, for Elsie went briskly toward the nursery, and an absolute silence ensued. Sally went listlessly to the window, where her eye was immediately caught by a long pruning ladder, leaning against the house a dozen feet away. Alma, the little waitress, quietly mixing a mayonnaise on the kitchen porch, was pressed into service, and five minutes later Sally's suit-case was cautiously lowered, on the end of a Mexican lariat, and Sally was steadying the top of the ladder against her window-sill. Alma was convulsed with innocent mirth, but her big, hard hands were effective in steadying the lower end of the ladder. Sally, who was desperately afraid of ladders, packed her thin skirts tightly about her, gave a fearful glance below, and began a nervous descent. At every alternate rung she paused, unwound her skirts, shut her eyes, and breathed hard. "PLEASE don't shake it so!" she said. "Aye dadden't!" said Alma, merrily. The ladder slipped an inch, settling a little lower. Sally uttered a smothered scream. She dared not move her eyes from the rung immediately in front of them. Her face was flushed, her hair had slipped back from her damp temples. It seemed to her as if she must already have climbed down several times the length of the ladder. At every step she had to kick her skirts free. "Permit me!" said a kind voice in the world of reeling brick walks and dwarfed gooseberry bushes below her. Sally, with a thump at her heart, looked down to see Dr. Bates lay a firm hand upon the rocking ladder. Speechless, she finished the descent, reeling a little unsteadily against the doctor's shoulder as she faced about on the walk. Her face was crimson. To climb down a ladder, with him looking pleasantly up from below, and then to fall into his very arms! Sally shook out her skirts like a furious hen, and walked, with one chilly inclination of the head for acknowledgment of his courtesy, toward the waiting motor. "Ferdie has promised Bill Bevis that you will spin me over in the motor," said the doctor, a little timidly, when they reached it. Sally eyed him stonily. "Ferd--" "Why, I had promised Bevis that I would look in to-day," pursued the doctor, uncomfortably; "and when they telephoned about it, a few minutes ago, one of the maids said that she believed that you were going right over, and would bring me." "I have changed my mind," said Sally. "Perhaps you will drive yourself over?" "I don't know anything about motors," apologized the doctor, gravely. "Ferd told one of the maids to say I would?" Sally said pleasantly. "Very well. Will you get in?"