heard much since his return from his late holiday.

He stopped awkwardly, rather confused at so unexpected a meeting; but
the stranger held out her hand, and looking up at him said: "I am so
glad you have come back; we have wanted you so much."

The Doctor did not answer. The sweet, low voice, with no touch of Irish
accent, was a new sound to him, the little hand that she gave him was
fairer and smaller and more dainty than any he had ever touched. To say
the truth, his early farm-house life and his hospital training and
dispensary practice had not brought him into contact with much
refinement, and this girl with her slight, childlike figure and soft,
earnest eyes seemed to him to have stepped from some unreal world. Then,
finding he still held the little hand, he blushed and let it go.

"How are you getting on, Mary?" he asked, turning to his patient.

"Middling, sir, thank you," said the girl. "I do have the cough very bad
some nights, but more nights it's better; and the lady, may God enable
her, has me well cared."

"I could not do much," said the lady, with an appealing glance, "and you
must not be angry with me for meddling with your patients. But now that
you have come I am sure Mary will be better."

"Don't be troubling yourself about me," said the sick girl, gently.
"I'll never be better till I see Laurence again."

"Oh, don't be giving yourself up like that," said the Doctor, cheerily;
"we won't let you die yet awhile."