o'clock that the sound of sleigh-bells was heard, and her father and
the doctor arrived. The latter came into the house alone, put his
bag on the table and began to pull off his overcoat, grumbling all
the while.

"With the roads in this condition," said he, "it is no small affair
to get about and visit the sick. And as for you folk, you seem to
have hidden yourselves as far in the woods as you could. Great
Heavens! You might very well all die without a soul coming to help
you."

After warming himself for a little while at the stove he approached
the bedside. "Well, good mother, so we have taken the notion to be
sick, just like people who have money to spend on such things!"

But after a brief examination he ceased to jest, saying:--"She
really is sick, I do believe."

It was with no affectation that he spoke in the fashion of the
peasantry; his grandfather and his father were tillers of the soil,
and he had gone straight from the farm to study medicine in Quebec,
amongst other young fellows for the most part like himself--
grandsons, if not sons of farmers--who had all clung to the plain
country manner and the deliberate speech of their fathers. He was
tall and heavily built, with a grizzled moustache, and his large
face wore the slightly aggrieved expression of one whose native
cheerfulness is being continually dashed through listening to the
tale of others' ills for which he is bound to show a decent
sympathy.