at the wrist; a thin flicker of elm buds, still distrustful of the
sun. Later, this delicate dance of foliage would thicken so that the
house would be in shadow, and the grass under the locusts on either
side of the front door fade into thin, mossy growth. But just now it
was overflowing with May sunshine. "Oh, he _would_ enjoy it if he
would only come," she thought. Well, anyhow, David would like it; and
she began to fell her seam with painstaking unaccustomed fingers.

The child was to come that day. Half a dozen times she dropped her
work to run to the gate, and shielding her eyes with her hand looked
down the road to Old Chester, but there was no sign of the jogging
hood of the buggy. Had anything happened? Was he sick? _Had Dr.
Lavendar changed his mind?_ Her heart stood still at that. She
debated whether or not she should go down to the Rectory and find out
what the delay meant? Then she called to one of the servants who was
crossing the hall, that she wondered why the little boy who was to
visit her, did not come. Her face cleared at the reminder that the
child went to school in the morning.

"Why, of course! I suppose he will have to go every morning?" she
added ruefully.

"My," Maggie said smiling, "you're wan that ought to have six!"

Mrs. Richie smiled, too. Then she said to herself that she wouldn't
let him go to school every day; she was sure he was not strong enough.
She ventured something like this to Dr. Lavendar when, about four
o'clock, Goliath and the buggy finally appeared.

"Strong enough?" said Dr. Lavendar. "He's strong enough to study a