But what with the lantern and the stars, there was light enough for William King to see the stray curl that blew across her forehead--brown, was it? And yet, William remembered that in daylight her hair was too bright to be called brown. He was solicitous lest he was making her walk too fast. "I don't want your brother to think we don't take care of you in Old Chester," he said; and in the starlight he could see that her face flushed a little. Then he repeated some Old Chester gossip, which amused her very much--and held his breath to listen to the delicious gayety of her laugh. "There ought to be a better path for you up the hill," he said; "I must speak to Sam Wright about it." And carefully he flung the noiseless zigzag of light back and forth in front of her, and told some more stories that he might hear that laugh again. When he left her at her own door she said with a sudden impetuous timidity, "Dr. King, _please_ make Dr. Lavendar give me the little boy!" "I will!" he said, and laughed at her radiant face. It seemed to the doctor as he went down the hill, that he had had a most delightful evening. He could not recollect what they had talked about, but he knew that they had agreed on every point. "A very intelligent lady," he said to himself. "William," said Martha, looking up from her mending as he entered the sitting-room, "did you remember to tell Davis that the kitchen sink leaks?" "Oh!" said the doctor blankly; "well--I'll tell him in the morning." Then, smiling vaguely, he dropped down into his shabby old easy-chair, and watched Martha's darning-needle plod in and out. "Martha," he said after a while, "what shade would you call your hair if it was--well, kind of brighter?" "_What?_" said Martha, looking at him over her spectacles; she put up her hard capable hand and touched her hair softly, as if she had forgotten it. "My hair used to be a real chestnut. Do you mean chestnut?" "I guess I do. It's a pretty color." Martha looked at him with a queer shyness in her married eyes, then tossed her head a little and thrust her darning-needle into the gray stocking with a jaunty air. "That's what you used to say," she said. After a while, noticing his tired lounge in the old chair, she said kindly, "Why did you stay so long at Dr. Lavendar's, Willy? You look tired. Do go to bed." "Oh," William explained, "I didn't stay very long; he asked me to see Mrs. Richie home. She had taken tea with him." Martha's face suddenly hardened. "Oh," she said coldly. Then, after a short silence: "Mrs. Richie's hair is too untidy for my taste." When Dr. Lavendar went back into the study he found David curled up in an arm-chair in profound meditation. "What are you thinking about so hard?" Dr. Lavendar said. "Yesterday. After church."