warn Jelnik!" And he made for the door.

At that Alicia laughed. Peal upon peal, like silver bells,
irrepressibly, infectiously, irresistibly, Alicia laughed. She cries
with her eyes open and her mouth shut, and she laughs with her eyes
shut and her mouth open. The effect is beyond all words enchanting.
The doctor paused in his headlong flight.

"All right: laugh!" he said, darkly. "But I shall warn Jelnik, none
the less!" And muttering: "_Sophronisba!_ Lord have mercy on us!
_Sophronisba!_" he departed hastily.

"What a nice neighbor!" commented Alicia. She added, musingly:
"Sophy, this is an enchanted place--a place where one has good
meals, bad advice, and black cats showered on one, free and gratis.
All one has to do is to stand still and take things as they come!"

"And hope one won't follow in the footsteps of one's predecessor,
who was an unmitigated old devil."

"At least," said Alicia, laughing, "_he_'ll never live to be an old
woman, will he, Sophy?"

"The man has the tact of a cannibal--"

"The shoulders of a Hercules--"

"An abominable temper--"

"And a beautiful beard. Somehow, Sophy, I rather approve of a beard,