"Get in line there," instructed Macauley. "Martha and I'll greet them
first and pass them on to you. Don't look as if you were noting symptoms
and don't absent-mindedly feel their pulses. It's not done, outside of
consulting rooms."

"I'll try to remember." R.P. Burns, M.D. resignedly took his place,
murmuring in Ellen's ear, as the first comers appeared at the door,
"Promise you'll make this up to me, when it's over. I shall have to blow
off steam, somehow. Will you help?"

She nodded, laughing. He chuckled, as an idea popped into his head; then
drew his face into lines of propriety, and stood, a big, dignified
figure--for Red Pepper could be dignified when the necessity was upon
him--beside the other graceful figure at his side, suggesting an
unfailing support of her grace by his strength to all who looked at them
that night. He had declared himself ignorant of all conventions, but
neither jocose James Macauley nor fastidious Arthur Chester, observing
him, could find any fault with their friend in this new rôle. As the
stream of their townspeople passed by, each with a carefully prepared
word of greeting, Burns was ready with a quick-wittedly amiable
rejoinder. And whenever it became his duty to present to his wife those
who did not know her, he made of the act a little ceremony which seemed
to set her apart as his own in a way which roused no little envy of her,
if he had but known it, in the breasts of certain of the feminine portion
of the company.

"You're doing nobly. Keep it up an hour longer and you shall be let off,"
said Macauley to Burns, at a moment when both were free.