Colonel Westerley had all the mildness and Christianity that, in some odd way, can seed in the composition of a certain kind of army man, to blossom forth in his retirement. One does not notice the seeding, but the flowers are very visible. He had been in India most of his life: had quelled border insurgencies and killed his country’s foes without a tremor; but now, among the croquet hoops and William Allen Richardsons, he was the soul of gentle courtesy and the Rector’s right-hand layman. The Colonel took over my “Times” at half-price at three o’clock every afternoon, and we shared a library subscription. Mrs. Westerley knitted continually for bazaars, and read aloud every evening until it was time for Patience and then bed. Rose and the Colonel were great friends. I used to see her watching him as he pruned and grafted, and asking him searching questions as to the perils of life in India. When he corroborated her suspicions and stated that it was really true that snakes got into the bath through the hole that lets the water out, she instituted a hostility to enter that receptacle and be washed all over that was very distressing to her nurse. The Colonel’s stories of man-eating tigers had less serious results. The very good case which he made for himself as an intrepid fighting man and terror of the jungle deteriorated, however, when Rose discovered one day that he had not a single Indian coin to display to her. To see a rupee in the flesh, so to speak, had suddenly become a necessity, second only to that of beholding a real live anna, which she associated in some curious way with Hannah Banks; and the incompetent old warrior had neither. How one could leave India and not bring any such souvenirs away, Rose could not comprehend. An ivory model of the Taj Mahal, proffered in lieu of coinage, had no effect whatever, not even when fortified by the Colonel’s word-picture of the original by moonlight. * * * * * I hardly need say that many of my patients, even the serious ones, took the liveliest interest in Rose, and since nothing is so vexing to the matron and even the spinster as the spectacle of a single man bringing up a young girl, I was naturally well supplied with advice. All my patients asked about her, but as for the hypochondriacs, they made Rose a staple of conversation—conversation being their principal requirement from a doctor. Having reported on the progress of their hypothetical maladies, they got to work at once on Rose’s progress. What was she doing? What was she reading? Had I any new amusing remarks of hers to repeat?