"Yes. What else would you have when a child is allowed to mope. Something is bound to happen. Clergymen are of use when a child’s naughty. But when it mopes itself ill, we are called in. Yet it’s a clergyman’s task after all. This child, on the way to being a woman, has never had one friend. Her mother is too timid to be really friendly with any one, and the husband is wrapped in his dry-as-dust philosophy--and where are you with a tender child like that?" "But if Mrs. Clutterbuck can’t be friendly with any one, why should I call?" asked Mrs. Leighton hopelessly. "Your girls might become friendly with the child," said he. "I’m afraid I don’t make a very good clergyman." "They call her the Serpent, you know," said Mrs. Leighton, "very naughty of them. I shall do my best, Doctor. I didn’t know her hair was coming out in patches." Dr. Merryweather might be complimented on his new profession after all. It had been a master stroke to refer to the patches. Mrs. Leighton had known of its happening after illness or great worry. That a child should suffer in this quiet moping manner seemed pathetic. "Yet, I don’t think I’m the person to do a thing of this sort," Mrs. Leighton said hopelessly to Miss Meredith later in the day. "I do so object to intrude on people. I should imagine it indelicate of any one else to do the same to myself, you know." "Very awkward, certainly," replied Miss Meredith primly. "Oh, mummy," said Elma, "you know how kind Miss Grace is or Miss Annie. They say ’Isn’t Betty a little pale at present?’ and you get her a tonic. You think nothing of that. It’s just the same with the Clutterbucks. Betty ought to behave herself and go and call with you, and get the Serpent to come. I think she looks a jolly little thing." Elma was quite alone in that opinion. "Jolly!" said Jean, "you might as well talk of a toadstool’s being jolly. Still, Betty isn’t a child. She shouldn’t be squabbling. Betty ought to call." "You know Dr. Clutterbuck, wouldn’t you call on his wife?" asked Mrs. Leighton of Miss Meredith. "Oh, I’m afraid I don’t know him well enough. Robin rather dislikes him--and, well, we have no young people, you see." Miss Meredith was lame but definite. "Then the sooner the better. Betty and I call to-morrow," said Mrs. Leighton. They did, and to their astonishment found Mrs. Clutterbuck dimly but surely pleased. Nobody remained timid very long in Mrs. Leighton’s kind presence, and the mutual subject of days long ago when it was no crime to talk of babies, broke the ice of years of reserve in Ridgetown with Mrs. Clutterbuck. The Serpent, after many pilgrimages on the part of the one maid to the garden, finally appeared. Mrs. Clutterbuck’s restraint returned with the evident unwillingness of Elsie’s attitude. Both retreated to the dumb condition so trying to onlookers.