them they have the best house in the village."

After dinner he went for a walk, and strolled along the pleasant
shady street. There were many good houses, for Elmerton was an old
village. Vessels had come into her harbour in bygone days, and
substantial merchant captains had built the comfortable, roomy
mansions which stretched their ample fronts under the drooping elms,
while their back windows looked out over the sea, breaking at the
very foot of their garden walls. But there was no house that compared,
in the young doctor's mind, with the Temple of Vesta. He was walking
slowly past it, admiring the delicate tracery on the white
window-sills, when the door opened, and a lady came out. The young
doctor observed her as she came down the steps; it was his habit to
observe everything. The lady was past sixty, tall and erect, and
walked stiffly.

"Rheumatic!" said the young doctor, and ran over in his mind certain
remedies which he had found effective in rheumatism.

She was dressed in sober gray silk, made in the fashion of thirty
years before, and carried an ancient parasol with a deep silk fringe.
As she reached the sidewalk she dropped her handkerchief. Standing
still a moment, she regarded it with grave displeasure, then tried
to take it up on the point of her parasol. In an instant the young
doctor had crossed the street, picked up the handkerchief, and
offered it to her with a bow and a pleasant smile.

"I thank you, sir!" said Miss Phoebe Blyth. "You are extremely
obliging."