"Oh, you ought to have heard the lord of the manor declare that he would not carry fuel for the cook," she cried. Ralph joined in the laugh that rose against him, but insisted that Dora should not change her dress. "You could not wear anything more becoming," he said, "and you do not know how much I want to treat the new cook as one of the family." "I will wear whatever the lord of the manor chooses," said Dora, demurely, and was about to make reference to his concluding remark, but checked herself. When the two girls joined the gentlemen on the porch, which they did with much promptness, having delegated the greater part of their household duties to Mike, who could take a hand at almost any kind of work, Dr. Tolbridge announced that he must proceed to visit his patient. "Are you coming back this way, doctor?" asked Dora. "Because if you are, would it be too much trouble for you to look for our buggy on the side of the road, and to bring back the cushions and the whip with you? Herbert may think that in this part of the country the people are so honest that they would not steal anything out of a deserted buggy, but I do not believe it is safe to put too much trust in people." "A fine, practicable mind," said the doctor; "cuts clean and sharp. I will bring the cushions and the whip, if they have not been stolen before I reach them. And now I will go to the barn and get my horse. We need not disturb the industrious Mike." "If you are going to the barn, doctor," cried Miriam, seizing her hat, "I will go with you and put the mosquito net over my calf, which I entirely forgot to do. Perhaps, if it is light enough, you will look at its eye." The doctor laughed, and the two went off together, leaving Dora and Ralph on the piazza. Dora could not help thinking of herself as a very lucky girl. When she had started that afternoon to make a little visit at Cobhurst, she had had no imaginable reason to suppose that in the course of a very few hours she would be sitting alone with Mr. Haverley in the early moonlight, without even his sister with them. She had expected to see Ralph and to have a chat with him, but she had counted on Miriam's presence as a matter of course; so this tête-à-tête in the quiet beauty of the night was as delightful as it was unanticipated. More than that, it was an opportunity that ought not to be disregarded.