watched, and he paid the Chinaman to watch, in the vain belief that money
would secure faithful service.

The Young Doctor had told him that his powerful medicine had brought back
the bloom to his young wife's cheeks and the light to her eyes, but how
much he believed, he could not himself have said. One thing he did know:
it was that Orlando seemed quite indifferent to everything except his
mother, the state of the crops and the reports on his own cattle. Also
Orlando had made a good impression when he resented with a funny little
oath and a funnier little giggle, but with some heat in his cheek, Joel's
ostentatious proposal to pay the Young Doctor's bill for attendance.

The offer had been made when Louise was standing in the doorway; but the
old man did not notice that Louise coloured in sympathy with the flush in
Orlando's face. It was as though a delicate nerve had been touched in
each of them; but it was a nerve that had never been sensitive until they
had met each other for the first time. Orlando's mother dealt with the
situation in her own way. She said in a somewhat awkward pause,
following the old man's proposal, that a doctor's bill was a personal
thing, and she would as soon allow some one else to pay it as to pay for her
washing. At this Orlando giggled again, and ventured the remark that no
doctor could dispense enough medicine in a year to pay her laundry bill
for a month--which pleased the old lady greatly and impelled her to swing
her skirt kittenishly.

It was at this point that Li Choo came knocking at the open door with a
message for Mazarine. It related to a horse-accident at what was known
as One Mile Spring; and Mazarine, having frowned his wife out of the
doorway, made his way downstairs and prepared for his short journey to
the Spring. Before he left, however, he called Li Choo aside, and what