"Is it important?" asked the elder woman.

"Quite," replied Grace, with an accent at once of surprise and decision.

"You may come in," said the other reluctantly, and she opened a door into
a room at the side of the hall.

"You may give Dr. Mulbridge my card, if you please," said Grace, before
she turned to go into this room; and the other took it, and left her to
find a chair for herself. It was a country doctor's office, with the
usual country doctor's supply of drugs on a shelf, but very much more
than the country doctor's usual library: the standard works were there,
and there were also the principal periodicals and the latest treatises of
note in the medical world. In a long, upright case, like that of an old
hall-clock, was the anatomy of one who had long done with time; a
laryngoscope and some other professional apparatus of constant utility
lay upon the leaf of the doctor's desk. There was nothing in the room
which did not suggest his profession, except the sword and the spurs
which hung upon the wall opposite where Grace sat beside one of the front
windows. She spent her time in study of the room and its appointments,
and in now and then glancing out at Mr. Libby, who sat statuesquely
patient in the buggy. His profile cut against the sky was blameless; and
a humorous shrewdness which showed in the wrinkle at his eye and in the
droop of his yellow mustache gave its regularity life and charm. It
occurred to her that if Dr. Mulbridge caught sight of Mr. Libby before he
saw her, or before she could explain that she had got one of the
gentlemen at the hotel--she resolved upon this prevarication--to drive
her to Corbitant in default of another conveyance, he would have his
impressions and conjectures, which doubtless the bunch of lilies in her