of being in love with Miss Vesta. He declared that no one could see
her without being in love with her. "Because you are so lovely, you
know!" he said to her half a dozen times a day. The remark never
failed to call up a soft blush, and a gentle "Don't, I pray you, my
dear young friend; you shock me!"

"But I like to shock you," the young doctor would reply. "You look
prettiest when you are shocked." And then Miss Vesta would shake her
pretty white curls (she was not more than sixty, but her hair had
been gray since her youth), and say that if he went on so she must
really call Sister Phoebe; and Master Geoffrey would go off laughing.

He did not make love to Miss Phoebe, but was none the less intimate
with her in frank comradeship. Rheumatism was their first bond.
Doctor Strong meant to make rather a specialty of rheumatism and
kindred complaints, and studied Miss Phoebe's case with ardour.
Every new symptom was received with kindling eye and eager
questionings. It was worst in her back this morning? So! now how
would she describe the pain? Was it acute, darting, piercing? No?
Dull, then! Would she call it grinding, boring, pressing? Ah! that
was most interesting. And for other symptoms--yes! yes! that
naturally followed; he should have expected that.

"In fact, Miss Blyth, you really are a magnificent case!" and the
young doctor glowed with enthusiasm. (This was when he first came to
live in the Temple of Vesta.) "I mean to relieve your suffering;
I'll put every inch there is of me into it. But, meantime, there
ought to be some consolation in the knowledge that you are a most
beautiful and interesting case."