The doctor heaved a prodigious sigh. As a colonel of the Confederacy
he had exacted strict discipline and unquestioning obedience, but he
now found himself ignominiously reduced to the ranks, and another
Fenton in command.

At Hollis Farm the judge met them at the gate. He was large and
loose-jointed, with the frame of a Titan and the smile of a child. He
wore a long, loose dressing-gown and a pair of slippers elaborately
embroidered in green roses. His big, irregular features were softened
by an expression of indulgent interest toward the world at large.

"Good morning, doctor. Howdy, Nettie. How are you all this morning?"

"Who's sick?" growled the doctor as he hitched his horse to the fence.

"It's a stray lad, doctor; my old cook, Melvy, played the good
Samaritan and picked him up off the road last night. She brought him
to me this morning. He's out of his head with a fever."

"Where'd he come from?" asked the doctor.

"Mrs. Hollis says he was peddling goods up at Main street and the
bridge last night."

"Which one is he?" demanded Annette, eagerly, as she emerged from the
buggy. "Is he g-good-looking, with blue eyes and light hair? Or is he
b-black and ugly and sort of cross-eyed?"

The judge peered over his glasses quizzically. "Thinking about the