his cigar-smoke very fast, looked up through the cloud abstractedly at
a new ornament which had been placed above the mantel shelf since we
first knew the room. Old Captain Finch had solaced his weary and
painful last years by making a beautiful little model of a ship, and
had left it in his will to the doctor. There never was a more touching
gift, this present owner often thought, and he had put it in its place
with reverent hands. A comparison of the two lives came stealing into
his mind, and he held the worn prescription-book a minute before he
opened it. The poor old captain waiting to be released, stranded on
the inhospitable shore of this world, and eager Nan, who was
sorrowfully longing for the world's war to begin. "Two idle heroes,"
thought Dr. Leslie, "and I neither wished to give one his discharge
nor the other her commission;" but he said aloud, "Nan, we will take a
six o'clock start in the morning, and go down through the sandy plains
before the heat begins. I am afraid it will be one of the worst of the
dog-days."

"Yes," answered Nan eagerly, and then she came close to the doctor,
and looked at him a moment before she spoke, while her face shone with
delight. "I am going to be a doctor, too! I have thought it would be
the best thing in the world ever since I can remember. The little
prescription-book was the match that lit the fire! but I have been
wishing to tell you all the evening."

"We must ask Marilla," the doctor began to say, and tried to add,
"What _will_ she think?" but Nan hardly heard him, and did not laugh
at his jokes. For she saw by his face that there was no need of
teasing. And she assured herself that if he thought it was only a
freak of which she would soon tire, she was quite willing to be put to
the proof.