"Oh, I ain't worryin' about that," responded his man-servant, reassuringly. "Old Doc. Williams uster say he'd make kindlin' wood o' me, when I didn't hustle round, but it never fizzed on me." He hung himself over the window-sill with a sigh of satisfaction, and gazed admiringly at his employer. A wire door, leading from the veranda to the main portion of the house, swung slowly open, and a woman, wearing a big, blue-checked apron, and carrying a long pewter spoon, looked out anxiously. "Davy!" she called in a loud whisper, "why don't you get on with your work?" "I'm helpin' the doctor with his mixtures," he answered, in a tone of remonstrance. The woman's tight mouth closed emphatically. "Well, hish!" she said, raising her spoon warningly. "Susan Winters is sittin' on her porch, an' she'll hear if you don't look out. It's no use talkin' about things, anyhow." The wire door creaked again, Mrs. Munn sailed away, and her son hung himself farther over the window-sill. Evidently he had inherited none of his mother's reticence. "Say," he ventured, confidentially, "Elsie Cameron's home; came yesterday, the very day you came. Ain't that funny?" The young doctor did not seem to see anything humorous in the coincidence. He glanced meaningly toward the lawnmower. "I bet she thinks it's a kind of a come-down to come back an' work on the farm after doin' nothin' but sing for so long. She's a bully singer, I tell you, only she's got red hair." He waited for some comment, but as there was none forthcoming, except a louder clatter of bottles, he continued: "Everybody thinks she's so awful good-lookin', but I don't think she's half as pretty as Jean--that's her sister. Say"--his voice sank to a whisper--"did anybody tell you about her sister yet?" There was a note of strained anxiety, almost amounting to terror, in the boy's tone, that commanded Gilbert's attention. He looked around. Perhaps it was some serious illness, and the new doctor was badly in need of a patient. "No. What's the matter with her?" he asked, interestedly. Davy glanced about him fearfully, as though he were about to disclose the young woman as the author of a deadly crime. He leaned still farther into the room. "She's--_she's my girl_!" he exploded, in a loud whisper. The new doctor turned his back suddenly. There was a long pause. "I must congratulate you," he said at last, in a smothered voice. Davy gazed at his broad back uncertainly. He had heard that formula before, but it had always been delivered to the newly wed. He was afraid the doctor was under a pleasant misapprehension.