He passed out to the gate. The long, shady village street, bordered by tall, swaying elms, stretched away on either hand, peaceful and deserted. To the new doctor the place looked half asleep, and uncompromisingly healthful. The clear May morning air was filled with a chorus of robins and orioles. A bluebird in the orchard bordering his lawn was singing ecstatically. Far up the street the musical cling-clang of the blacksmith's anvil, and from the depths of the ravine, in the opposite direction, the hum of the sawmill, served only like a lullaby to make the silence more dreamy. He stepped out upon the boardwalk that ran along the street. Overhead the maples and elms met, making a cool tunnel. In this green canopy nest-building was being carried on, on a great scale and with tremendous commotion. The doctor picked his way carefully along the undulating surface of the sidewalk, for the boards were damp and rotten, and liable to fly up at one end and break a limb; and though he was anxious for a patient, he did not fancy serving in that capacity himself. The quiet houses, surrounded by their demure gardens, gave no indication that he was being watched from behind many a window-blind. Neither was there any stir to give hint that from the upstairs window of the village shop at the end of the street a telescope was pointing at him, while Granny Long informed the breathless circle about her bed that his necktie was of blue-gray satin, and that his hair was thick and wavy. Quite unconscious of the sensation he was creating, the new doctor walked on. He passed a tiny white house set in a square garden bright with early blossoms. A little woman, in a faded lilac gown, sat sewing on the porch, and a green parrot, in a cage at her side, stalked to and fro on his perch, muttering sullenly. At sight of the stranger the bird gave an indignant stare, then swung, head downward, from his perch and shouted, "Oh, Lordy, ain't we havin' a slow time!" The remark so exactly coincided with the new doctor's sentiments that he looked over the cedar hedge at the speaker with a feeling of friendly regard. But the little lilac lady seemed quite of another mind. She sprang up in dismayed haste, scattering thimble and scissors out on the pathway, and, seizing the cage, fled with it indoors. Gilbert passed on, feeling that there was one creature, at least, in this new place who was in sympathy with him. His eye traveled with satisfaction along the double row of trim houses and neat gardens; they spoke of thrift and prosperity. There was only one exception, the place next to the home of the ennuied parrot. Hens scratched merrily in the midst of desert flower-beds, or nested under the lilac bushes, a handsome goose and gander passed in stately promenade up and down the front veranda, and the whole place had a happy, go-as-you-please air.