_Whacketty-bang_ against the window-pane sounded the Little Crippled Girl’s knuckled fists. Darkly against the window-pane squashed the Little Crippled Girl’s staring face. “Father,” screamed the shrill voice. “Father, there’s a white lady here, with two black ladies, washing the breakfast dishes! Is it Aunt Agnes?” With a totally unexpected laugh, with a totally unexpected desire to laugh, the Senior Surgeon strode across the room and unlocked his door. Even then his lips against the White Linen Nurse’s ear made just a whisper, not a kiss. “For God’s sake, hurry!” he said. “Let’s get out of here before any telephone-message catches me!” Then almost calmly he walked out on the piazza and greeted his sister-in-law. “Hello, Agnes!” he said. “Hello, yourself!” smiled his sister-in-law. “How’s everything?” he inquired politely. “How’s everything with you?” parried his sister-in-law. Idly for a few moments the Senior Surgeon threw out stray crumbs of thought to feed the conversation, while smilingly all the while from her luxuriant East Indian chair his sister-in-law sat studying the general situation. The Senior Surgeon’s sister-in-law was always studying something. Last year it was archæology; the year before, basketry; this year it happened to be eugenics, or something funny like that; next year, again, it might be book-binding. “So you and your pink-and-white shepherdess are going off on a little trip together?” she queried banteringly. “The girl’s a darling, Lendicott. I haven’t had as much sport in a long time as I had that afternoon last June when I came in my best calling clothes and helped her paint the kitchen woodwork. And I had come prepared to be a bit nasty, Lendicott. In all honesty, Lendicott, I might just as well ’fess up that I had come prepared to be just a little bit nasty.” “She seems to have a way,” smiled the Senior Surgeon--“she seems to have a way of disarming people’s unpleasant intentions.” A trifle quizzically for an instant the woman turned her face to the Senior Surgeon’s. It was a worldly face, a cold-featured, absolutely worldly face, with a surprisingly humorous mouth that warmed her nature just about as cheerfully, and just about as effectually, as one open fireplace warms a whole house. Nevertheless, one often achieved much comfort by keeping close to “Aunt Agnes’s” humorous mouth, for Aunt Agnes knew a thing or two, Aunt Agnes did, and the things that she made a point of knowing were conscientiously amiable. “Why, Lendicott Faber,” she rallied him now, “why, you’re as nervous as a school-boy! Why, I believe--I believe that you’re going courting!”