He turned toward her, and took up a book from the table. "I said nothing, dear Lydia--I've nothing to say, I find." Lydia broke into a light, mocking laugh--the doctor's volubility was an old joke--and began to speak, when a woman's voice called, "Oh, Marius, here's Mr.---- why, Lydia, how did you get in without my seeing you?" She entered the room as she spoke--a middle-aged woman, with large blue eyes and graying fair hair, who evidently did her duty by the prevailing styles in dress with a comfortable moderation of effort. Lydia's mother, as the sister of Mrs. Sandworth's long-dead husband, thought it necessary, from time to time, to endeavor to stir her sister-in-law up to a keener sense of what was due the world in the matter of personal appearance; but Mrs. Sandworth, born a Melton, had the irritating unconcern for social problems of that distinguished Kentucky family. She cared only to please her brother Marius, she said, and he never cared what she had on, but only what was in her mind--a remark that had once caused Judge Emery to say, in a fit of exasperation with her wandering wits, that if she ever had as little on as she had in her mind, he guessed Melton would sit up and take notice. Lydia now rushed at her aunt, exclaiming, "Oh, Aunt Julia, how _good_ you do look to me! The office door was open and I slipped in that way, without ringing the bell." "It's four years old, and never been touched, not even the sleeves," said the other deprecatingly. Her brother laughed. "Who did you say was here--Oh, it's you, Rankin; come in, come in." The newcomer was half-way across the room before he saw Lydia. He stopped, with a look of extreme pleasure and surprise, which Lydia answered with a frank smile. "Why, have you met my niece?" asked Mrs. Sandworth, looking from one to the other. "Oh, yes; Mr. Rankin's my oldest new friend in Endbury. I met him the first day I was back." "And when I set up the newel-post--" "And I ran on to his house by accident the day Marietta and I were out with little Pete, when it rained and I borrowed his overcoat and umbrella--" "And then I had to call to take them away, of course--" They intoned their confessions like a gay antiphonal chant. A bright color had come up in Lydia's cheeks. She looked very sunny and good-humored, like a cheerful child, an expression which up to that year had been habitual to her. Dr. Melton looked at her without speaking. "So, you see," she concluded, "not to speak of several other times--we're very well acquainted." "Well, Marius! Did you ever!" Mrs. Sandworth appealed to her brother. "Oh, I've known about it all along. Rankin and I have discussed Lydia as well as other weighty matters, a great many times."