"Yes; I brought her up," interposed Mehitabel, with grim self-complacency. "Don't pull that bandage so tight, doctor. You want to have me running over after you in an hour to come and loosen it." "That's it, Mehitabel; teach your grandmother to suck eggs. I come here, Mr. Wynne, chiefly to learn my profession from her." "She seems willing to teach you," Wynne replied, and then, with a boyish doubt if she might not take offense, he added, "which of course is very kind of her." Mehitabel chuckled in high good-humor. "Kind it is and unappreciated it is; and little is the credit he does to his training. Men are all alike; if they owned half they owe to women they'd be too ashamed to show their heads in daylight." The droll airs of the old woman entertained Wynne so greatly that he bore with exemplary fortitude the painful attentions of the physician, the harder to bear because the wound had had time to inflame. The arm was dressed at last, and the doctor took himself away with a parting passage of arms with Mehitabel. "The thing for you to do, young man," she said, when Dr. Murray had departed, "is to stay in bed where you are, and that's reason enough for a man to want to get up." "I'm not fond of staying in bed," Maurice responded with a smile; "and besides that I must get back to Boston." She regarded him with an expression of marked disfavor. "Humph," said she. "Quarters ain't good enough for you, I suppose." "On the contrary, it is I who am not good enough for the quarters." Mehitabel went on with her work of arranging the curtains and putting the room to rights as she answered:-- "Well, I dare say you ain't; but what special thing've you done?" "Special thing?" Maurice repeated, somewhat confused. "Oh, I see. The fact is, I don't think I've any right to impose on the hospitality of Mrs. Morison." "Well," assented she again, "I dare say you ain't; but if she's willing, you ain't no occasion to grumble, 's I see. She ain't a-going to hear of your starting out hot-foot, 's if she wouldn't keep you. It'd look bad for the reputation of the family." "But," began he, "I"-- "Besides," the old woman continued, ignoring his attempt to speak, "you ain't got much to wear. Them petticoats you come in, which ain't suitable for any man to wear, without it's the bearded lady in the circus if she's a man, which I never rightly knew, is so torn to pieces by the grace of heaven that you can't go in them, and all the rest of your clothes are all holes and blood." "I suppose my clothes were pretty well used up," he replied, divided between a desire to laugh and a feeling that he should resent the affront to his clerical garb; "and of course my baggage is nowhere. Can I get clothing here, or shall I have to send to Boston?" "You can't get men's petticoats," Mehitabel retorted uncompromisingly, "nor none of them Popish things. If it's good, plain God-fearing pants and such, there ain't no trouble, and the price is reasonable."