"Just go on and do it and don't ask him," was the practical answer. "There he comes now leading his horse and he have been to see Mis' Bostick. I can get the dinner and run on to meet him and hear how he thinks she are," she exclaimed as she seized her dish and bucket and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. And a few minutes later, as Doctor Mayberry was unsaddling his horse in the barn a lithe figure enveloped as to head and shoulders in one of Cindy's kitchen aprons darted under the dripping eaves and stood breathless and laughing in the wide door. "I saw you come up the Road," said the singer lady, as she divested herself of the gingham garment, "and I was dying to get out in the rain, much to Cindy's horror. You are late." "Not much," answered the young Doctor, slipping out of his rain coat and coming over to stand beside her in the door. "What have you been doing all morning?" "I've been being--being lectured," she answered, as she looked up in his face with dancing dark eyes. "Who did it to you?" he asked, taking her fingers into his and drawing her farther back from the splash of the rain drops. "Your Mother and then Eliza Pike," she answered with a low laugh. "Eliza is afraid I won't 'do for you' in proper Providence style and I'm very humble and--I--I want to learn. She thinks I ought to begin on some--some shirts for you right now and I'm going to. What color do you prefer?" "Horrors!" exclaimed the Doctor, positively blushing at the thought of the very lovely lady engaged in such a clothing mission. "I knew you wouldn't have any confidence in them," answered Miss Wingate mournfully, "and I haven't myself, but still I was willing to try." "Oh, yes, I have!" the young Doctor hastened to exclaim. "Better make them suitable for traveling, for I've got marching orders in the noon mail. Are you ready to start to Italy on short notice and then on to India?" "What?" demanded the singer lady with alarmed astonishment. "Yes," answered the young Doctor coolly. "The Commission writes that my reports on Pellagra down here are complete enough now for them to send some chap down to continue them, while I go on to Southern Italy for a study of similar conditions there and then on to India for a still more exhaustive examination. The Government is determined to stamp this scourge out before it gets a hold, and it's work to put out the fire before it spreads. Better hurry the shirts and pack up your own fluff." "But I'm not going a step or a wave," answered the singer girl defiantly. "I'm too busy here now. I don't ever intend to leave Mother as long as I live. I don't see how you can even suggest such a thing to me."