The young couple down town have come home--Meg Linwood and her husband Nipper, I mean. His father has explained the situation very sharply to him--that is, in so far as the business is concerned. I think he is waiting about the house and furniture till Elizabeth has said "yes" or "no." It is a good time to tell about our churches. Ours is the nicest. For though we are not compelled to go to any particular one, yet Somebody thinks it is a kind of point of honor to attend the one in which we were born and brought up. There are all sorts of things going on, too, and young people who don't have parties and dances get to know each other at _soirees_ and social meetings. It acts just the same--even quicker, I have noticed. They get married to each other all the same. Hugh John, who has studied the subject, says he can stand all sorts of "flirts," except the one who asks you about your soul before she knows whether _she_ has got one herself! Now there is Thomasina Morton, the doctor's daughter, and a smart girl too. Only she never could get away from two or three catchwords, caught up from all sorts of people. She got fearfully anxious about the souls of all the good-looking young men, and made them come into her father's consulting-room so that she could "plead with them." Of course it was all very good and, I dare say, most necessary, but I _don't_ think it was fair on Dr. Morton. You see, he is a good man, but much exposure to all sorts of weather has told on his temper, and really I can't blame him for what he said when he stumbled upon one of these reunions in the dusk of a November afternoon. It was Billy Jackson's legs he fell over, and they say Billy has had to walk with a stick ever since. But Thomasina declared that her father was hard-hearted, and even went to consult her minister about it. But Mr. Taylor is a sensible man, and said that thirty years of Dr. Morton's life would weigh against a good deal of strongish language in the archangel's scales! He also asked Thomasina where her father had been that day, and she said, "Out seeing his country patients, since eight in the morning!" Then Mr. Taylor asked who they were, and Thomasina told him. "The Doctor knows as well as I do," he said, "that he will never see a penny of fees from any of them. Don't you trouble, my young lady, about the hardness of your father's heart. And tell Mr. William Jackson that it will be more suitable for him to come and see _me_ about his soul. I am at his service from eight till ten every evening--except Wednesday and Saturday!" I don't know if Billy Jackson felt that this was not quite the same thing, or whether the minister's hours did not suit him. At all events he never went.