"I think it is a glorious profession," returned James, with his haughty
young enthusiasm.

"I wasn't talking about the profession," said the doctor; "I was talking
of the man who has to grind his way through it. It's a dog's life.
Neither your body nor your soul are your own. Oh, well, maybe you'll
like it."

"You seem to," remarked James rather pugnaciously.

"I? What can I do, young man, but stick to it whether I like it or not?
What would they do? Yes, I suppose I am fool enough to like a dog's
life, or rather to be unwilling to leave it. No money could induce me
anyhow. I suppose you know there is not much money in it?"

James said that he had not supposed a fortune was to be made in a
country practice.

"The last bill any of them will pay is the doctor's," said Doctor
Gordon. Then he added with a laugh, "especially when the doctor is
myself. They have to pay a specialist from New York, but I wait until
they are underground, and the relatives, I find, stick faster to the
monetary remains than the bark to a tree. If I hadn't a little private
fortune, and my--sister a little of her own, I expect we should starve."

James noticed with a little surprise the doctor's hesitation before he
spoke of his sister. It seemed then that he was not married. Somehow,
James had thought of him as married as a matter of course.