you're frustrated once more."

"I am not surprised. Drugging is as bad a habit as drinking, and as hard
to leave off. Miss Wort has just gone in to your wife, so I will not
intrude. What is your son doing at present, Christie?"

"He's about somewhere idling with his drawing-book and bits o' colors.
He takes himself off whenever it is a finer day than common. Most likely
he's gone to Great-Ash Ford. He's met with a mate there after his own
mind--an artist chap. Was you wanting him, Mr. Carnegie?"

"There is a job of painting to do at my stable, but it can wait. Only
tell him, and he will suit his convenience."

At this moment Miss Wort reappeared in a sort of furtive hurry. She
gave a timid, sidelong glance at the doctor, and then addressed Bessie.
Mr. Carnegie had his eye upon her: she was the thorn in his professional
flesh. She meddled with his patients--a pious woman for whom other
people's souls and internal complaints supplied the excitement absent
from her own condition and favorite literature. She had some superfluous
income and much unoccupied time, which she devoted to promiscuous
visiting and the relief (or otherwise) of her poorer and busier
neighbors. Mr. Carnegie had refused to accept the plea of her good heart
in excuse of her bad practice, and had denounced her, in a moment of
extreme irritation, as a presumptuous and mischievous woman; and Miss
Wort had publicly rejoined that she would not call in Mr. Carnegie if
she were at death's door, because who could expect a blessing on the
remedies of a man who was not a professor of religion? The most cordial
terms they affected was an armed neutrality. The doctor was never free
from suspicion of Miss Wort. Though she looked scared and deprecating,