world, but she sneered with contempt of her own credulity as she sought to imagine the only medical man within her ken, the old country doctor, at such escapades,—he of the big spectacles, and the rickety buggy, and the bald head, and the black store-clothes. Conventionality, reliability, and respectability could not have been more expressively impersonated. Again that wild, exhausted wail from within, the vague sound of the troubled comments of the watchers, and she started anew upon her mission to arouse the neighbors; weeping that so much time had been wasted, and her heart throbbing with anger and resentment that she had been so ready a dupe. She had reached the turn-row, when suddenly the galloping of horses invaded the silence, the hoof-beats resonant, as they splashed into the pools of the red clay road. She stood still amongst the leaning stalks, listening, hoping, doubting. Her heart sank in an interval of silence; then that turbulent sound of swift equestrians was again upon the air, and she knew that the horsemen were coming in single file down the turn-row. She faced about precipitately, and ran like a frightened deer. She would be there first; they should never know that she had doubted them, and had come forth to search for others. She was half laughing and half crying, in the intensity of her relief, in her relish of her own quick resource. Nevertheless, she had barely reached the gate, so swift was their progress, when they reined up beside it; she silently ran through it in the darkness, and in the interval while they dismounted and hitched their horses she made her way to the porch. The shaft of light that fell out into the night, as Mrs. Strobe, hearing their approach, cautiously opened the door, revealed Marcella, her tall figure swathed in her clinging wet garments, her red shawl twisted about her throat, her dense hair weighted with rain hanging upon her shoulders, her eyes soft and dewy, her lips all tenderly smiling upon the advancing shadows. “I fetched him, Marcelly!” Jake Baintree exclaimed, as he came up the steps of the porch, and the light from the room showed his keen, clearly-cut face, shiny with the rain, and his eyes, all eager with interest and excitement, sharply glancing out from under his hat-brim. “He ’lowed he couldn’t do nuthin’ ’thout his physic, so he an’ me hed ter take time ter go—yander,”—he hesitated suddenly and spoke with embarrassment, jerking his thumb vaguely over his shoulder,—“ter git his med’cine-chist. Good-evenin’, Mis’ Strobe,” he went on, his voice the very essence of oily propitiation, as he caught sight of the little dame, seeming forlorn, and smaller and more wrinkled than ever, as she peered out of the door. The long-legged Isabel could easily look over her shoulder, and she did. “Powerful sorry ter hear from Marcelly how Eli hev been tuk. I hev brung a doctor-man, ez hev been abidin’ with me, ter see ef he can’t settle him somehows.”