did send for the doctor, who came briskly in, just as Elizabeth Ann had
always seen him, with his little square black bag smelling of leather,
his sharp eyes, and the air of bored impatience which he always wore in
that house. Elizabeth Ann was terribly afraid to see him, for she felt
in her bones he would say she had galloping consumption and would die
before the leaves cast a shadow. This was a phrase she had picked up
from Grace, whose conversation, perhaps on account of her asthma, was
full of references to early graves and quick declines.

And yet--did you ever hear of such a case before?--although Elizabeth
Ann when she first stood up before the doctor had been quaking with fear
lest he discover some deadly disease in her, she was very much hurt
indeed when, after thumping her and looking at her lower eyelid inside
out, and listening to her breathing, he pushed her away with a little
jerk and said: "There's nothing in the world the matter with that child.
She's as sound as a nut! What she needs is ..."--he looked for a moment
at Aunt Frances's thin, anxious face, with the eyebrows drawn together
in a knot of conscientiousness, and then he looked at Aunt Harriet's
thin, anxious face with the eyebrows drawn up that very same way, and
then he glanced at Grace's thin, anxious face peering from the door
waiting for his verdict--and then he drew a long breath, shut his lips
and his little black case very tightly, and did not go on to say what it
was that Elizabeth Ann needed.

Of course Aunt Frances didn't let him off as easily as that, you may be
sure. She fluttered around him as he tried to go, and she said all sorts
of fluttery things to him, like "But, Doctor, she hasn't gained a pound
in three months ... and her sleep ... and her appetite ... and her
nerves ..."