paper bag down on Thea's coverlid and winked at her.
They had a code of winks and grimaces. When he went in
to chat with her mother, Thea opened the bag cautiously,
trying to keep it from crackling. She drew out a long bunch
of white grapes, with a little of the sawdust in which they
had been packed still clinging to them. They were called
Malaga grapes in Moonstone, and once or twice during the
winter the leading grocer got a keg of them. They were
used mainly for table decoration, about Christmas-time.
Thea had never had more than one grape at a time before.
When the doctor came back she was holding the almost
transparent fruit up in the sunlight, feeling the pale-green
skins softly with the tips of her fingers. She did not thank
him; she only snapped her eyes at him in a special way
which he understood, and, when he gave her his hand,
put it quickly and shyly under her cheek, as if she were
trying to do so without knowing it--and without his
knowing it.

Dr. Archie sat down in the rocking-chair. "And how's
Thea feeling to-day?"

He was quite as shy as his patient, especially when a
third person overheard his conversation. Big and hand-
some and superior to his fellow townsmen as Dr. Archie
was, he was seldom at his ease, and like Peter Kronborg
he often dodged behind a professional manner. There
was sometimes a contraction of embarrassment and self-
consciousness all over his big body, which made him awk-
ward--likely to stumble, to kick up rugs, or to knock over