anything pure must be a godsend to the poor poisoned public.

Now, Dr. Staines, though known to the profession as a diagnost, was also
an analyst, and this challenge brought him down on Phoebe Dale. He
told her he was a physician, and in search of pure food for his own
family--would she really submit the milk to analysis?

Phoebe smiled an honest country smile, and said, "Surely, sir." She gave
him every facility, and he applied those simple tests which are commonly
used in France, though hardly known in England.

He found it perfectly pure, and told her so; and gazed at Phoebe for a
moment, as a phenomenon.

She smiled again at that, her broad country smile. "That is a wonder in
London, I dare say. It's my belief half the children that die here are
perished with watered milk. Well, sir, we shan't have that on our souls,
father and I; he is a farmer in Essex. This comes a many miles, this
milk."

Staines looked in her face, with kindly approval marked on his own
eloquent features. She blushed a little at so fixed a regard. Then he
asked her if she would supply him with milk, butter, and eggs.

"Why, if you mean sell you them, yes, sir, with pleasure. But for
sending them home to you in this big town, as some do, I can't; for
there's only brother Dick and me: it is an experiment like."

"Very well," said Staines: "I will send for them."