years afterwards. How sweet he was to Dr. McQueen, never forgetting
the respect due to gray hairs, never hinting that the new school of
medicine knew many things that were hidden from the old, and always
having the sense to support McQueen when she was scolding him for his
numerous naughty ways. When the old doctor came home now on cold
nights it was not with his cravat in his pocket, and Grizel knew very
well who had put it round his neck. McQueen never had the humiliation,
so distressing to an old doctor, of being asked by patients to send
his assistant instead of coming himself. He thought they preferred
him, and twitted David about it; but Grizel knew that David had
sometimes to order them to prefer the old man. She knew that when he
said good-night and was supposed to have gone to his lodgings, he was
probably off to some poor house where, if not he, a tired woman must
sit the long night through by a sufferer's bedside, and she realized
with joy that his chief reason for not speaking of such things was
that he took them as part of his natural work and never even knew that
he was kind. He was not specially skilful, he had taken no honours
either at school or college, and he considered himself to be a very
ordinary young man. If you had said that on this point you disagreed
with him, his manner probably would have implied that he thought you
a bit of an ass.

When a new man arrives in Thrums, the women come to their doors to see
whether he is good-looking. They said No of Tommy when he came back,
but it had been an emphatic Yes for Dr. Gemmell. He was tall and very
slight, and at twenty-seven, as at twenty-one, despite the growth of a
heavy moustache, there was a boyishness about his appearance, which
is, I think, what women love in a man more than anything else. They
are drawn to him by it, and they love him out of pity when it goes. I
suppose it brings back to them some early, beautiful stage in the