A cheerful robin began a loud solo in one of Dr. Leslie's
cherry-trees, and the little girl laughed aloud in her make-believe
meeting-house, and then the gate was opened and shut, and the doctor
himself appeared, strolling along, and smiling as he came.

He was looking to the right and left at his flowers and trees, and
once he stopped and took out his pocket knife to trim a straying
branch of honeysuckle, which had wilted and died. When he came to the
summer-house, he found his guest sitting there demurely with her hands
folded in her lap. She had gathered some little sprigs of box and a
few blossoms of periwinkle and late lilies of the valley, and they lay
on the bench beside her. "So you did not go to church with Marilla?"
the doctor said. "I dare say one sermon a day is enough for so small a
person as you." For Nan's part, no sermon at all would have caused
little sorrow, though she liked the excitement of the Sunday drive to
the village. She only smiled when the doctor spoke, and gave a little
sigh of satisfaction a minute afterward when he seated himself beside
her.

"We must be off presently," he told her. "I have a long drive to take
before night. I would let you go with me, but I am afraid I should
keep you too long past your bedtime."

The little girl looked in his kind face appealingly; she could not
bear to have the day come to an end. The doctor spoke to her as if she
were grown up and understood everything, and this pleased her. It is
very hard to be constantly reminded that one is a child, as if it were
a crime against society. Dr. Leslie, unlike many others, did not like
children because they were children; he now and then made friends with
one, just as he added now and then to his narrow circle of grown