It might seem that Mrs. Strobe could not easily recover from the stress of this interview, but her elasticity was altogether unstrained, and she rebounded from her humiliating detection with the alert grace of one who, from good-nature, ignores a defiance, having ample resources at call. “Gin up the case!” she cried scornfully. “An’ what do we-uns keer, with a doctor-man o’ our own, what Jake Baintree fotched! I hed a great mind ter tell ’bout’n him, an’ how peart he war, but I war ’feard o’ hurtin’ the old man’s feelin’s. Murderin’ Eli,—I say! I war so mad wunst I hed a great mind ter throttle the old man;” which the doctor would have esteemed a terrible intention in a woman of Mrs. Strobe’s size, had he known she entertained it. “But how did he find out Eli hed tuk the t’other doctor’s medicine? I tell ye, now, Marcelly, that thar old man hev got eyes in the back o’ his head, an’ kin see fourteen mile off through a thunder-storm in the night-time ’thout strainin’ his sight.” Mrs. Strobe affected to hope that he would continue angry, and fail to keep his engagement; but her relief was very patent when he reappeared with his saddle-bags the next day, and the next, and still again. He took little note of her except to treat her remarks with a sedulous show of unconcern. He asked Marcella keen and searching questions as to his patient during his absence, and strained to the uttermost their every capacity and all the resources of the little cabin to subserve the invalid’s comfort. All was ungrudgingly and submissively accorded, but, nevertheless, he began to look very grave as the days wore on, and now and then he solemnly shook his bald head. “What makes him shake his head that-a-way, Marcelly?” the old woman demanded. “Ter make sure thar’s nuthin’ in it? He needn’t look so disappointed. I could hev tole him ez much ez that, an’ kep’ him from expectin’ ter hear it rattle.”