streets, quiet and tree-lined. It has sunny, empty lots where children play. No one is crowded or shut in. The houses stand in their own green lawns, and are comfortable and even picturesque. The Swiss chalet style has not yet come to Coombe, so the architecture, though plain, is not productive of nightmare. The roads are like country roads, soft and yellowish; green grass grows along the sides of many of them, and board sidewalks are still to be found, springy and easy to the tread. There is a main street with macadamised roadway and stone pavements, real flat stone, for they were laid before the appearance of the all-conquering cement. There is a postoffice with a tower and a clock, a courthouse with a fountain and a cannon, a park with a bandstand and a baseball diamond, a townhall with a belfry and no bell, an exhaustive array of churches, the Imperial Hotel, and the market. We mention the market last (as we were taught at school) because on account of its importance it ought to come first.

When Dr. Callandar, having been efficiently valeted by Bubble, set out to pay his first professional call, he drew in deep breaths of the pleasant air with a feeling of well-being to which he had long been a stranger. He had slept. In spite of the room, in spite of the chocolate cake, in spite of the pie, he had slept. And that alone was enough to make the whole world over. It was still hot but with a heat different from the heat of yesterday. A little shower had fallen during the night. There was a sense of the north in the air, a light freshness, very invigorating. He liked the quiet shaded streets; the cannon by the courthouse amused him; the number of church steeples left him amazed. He felt as if he had stumbled into a dream-town and must walk carefully lest he stumble out.

Bubble had given him very complete directions, indeed so minute were they that we will omit them lest some day you find the way yourself and drop in on Mrs. Sykes when she is not expecting company. But Dr. Callandar in his amused absorption had forgotten that he was going to Mrs. Sykes at all, when he was recalled to a sense of duty by a sharp hail from the corner house of a street he had just passed. Looking back, he saw, half-way down the road, a tall, red woman leaning over a gate, who, upon attracting his attention, began waving her arms frantically, after the manner of an old-fashioned signalman inviting a train to "Come on." Callandar's step quickened in spite of himself and he forgot his idle musings.

"Land sakes! I thought you'd never get here!" exclaimed the red woman fervently. "I suppose that imp of a boy didn't direct you right. Lucky I knew you as soon as you passed the corner. Mark Morrison may be as useless as they make 'em, but he's got a fine gift for description. Come right in. I'm dreadful anxious about Ann. It don't seem like measles, and she's had chicken-pox twice, and if she's sickening for anything worse I want to know it. I ain't one of them optimists that won't believe they're sick till they're dead. Callandar's your name, Mark says—any chance of your being a cousin to Dr. Callandar of Montreal that cured Mrs. Sowerby?"

"No, I am not that Dr. Callandar's cousin."

"I told Mark 'twasn't likely—or you wouldn't be here. Not if he'd any family feeling. I'm a great believer in a man making his own stepping-stones anyway," she went on with a friendly smile; "we ought to rise up on ourselves, like the poet says, and not on our cousins."

"A noble sentiment," said Callandar gravely, as he followed her up the walk, across a veranda so clean that one hesitated to step on it, and into a small hall, bare and spotless, where he was invited to hang up his hat.

"You're younger than I expected," went on Mrs. Sykes kindly. "I hope you ain't entirely dependent on your practice in Coombe?"

The amazed doctor was understood to murmur something about "private means."

"That's good. You'd starve if you hadn't. Coombe's a terrible healthy place and poor Doc. Simmonds didn't pay a call a week. I just felt like some one ought to warn you. I despise folks who hold back from telling things because they ain't quite pleasant. Know the worst, I always say; it's better in the end. Of course, as Mark says, your being a Presbyterian will make considerable diff'rence. Some folks thought Doc. Simmonds was pretty nigh an infiddle!"

Too overcome by his feelings to answer, Callandar followed her up the narrow stair and into a clean bright room with green-tinted walls and yellow matting on the floor.

Mrs. Sykes waved a deprecatory hand, at once exhibiting and apologising for so much splendour.

"This is the spare-room," she explained. "And there," pointing to the high, old-fashioned bed, "is Ann."

Callandar crossed the immaculate matting gingerly, taking Ann on faith, as it were, for, from the door, no; Ann was visible, only a very small dent in the big whiteness of the bed.

"Ann! Here's the doctor!"

A small black head and a pair of frightened black eyes appeared for a moment as if by conjuration, and instantly vanished.

"Ann!" said Mrs. Sykes more sternly.

There was a squirming somewhere under the bedclothes, but nothing happened.

"Great Scott!" exclaimed the doctor, "you've got the child in a feather-bed!"

Mrs. Sykes beamed complacently.

"Yes, I have. It may seem like taking a lot of trouble for nothing, but you never can tell. I ain't one of them that never prepares for anything. Jest as soon as Ann gets sick I move her right into the spare-room and put her into the best feathers. Then if she should be took sudden I wouldn't have anything to regret. The minister and the doctor can come in here any hour and find things as I could wish…. Ann! what do you mean by wiggling down like that? Ann—come up at once! The doctor wants to see your tongue."

This time the note of command was effective. The black head came to the surface, again followed by the frightened eyes and plump little cheeks stained with feverish red.

"Some cool water, if you please," ordered the doctor in his best professional manner. Mrs. Sykes opened her lips to ask why, but something caused her to shut them without asking.

When she had left the room, Callandar leaned suddenly over and lifted Ann bodily out of the dent and placed her firmly upon a pillow. It was a very plump pillow, evidently filled with the "best feathers," but compared with the bed it was as a rock in an ocean.

"Now," he said gravely, "you are safe, for the present. You are on an island; but be very careful not to slide off for if you do I may never be able to look at your tongue."

The child's hands grasped the island convulsively.

"Don't hold on like that," he warned. "You might tip." He leaned close so that she might see the smile in his eyes, "And if you tipped …"

The child gave a sudden delighted giggle. "I'd go right in over my head, wouldn't I?"

"Yes. And next time you were rescued you might feel more inclined to tell your aunt what you had been eating before you became ill."

Ann stopped giggling.

"You don't need to tell me," went on the doctor, "because I know!"

"How d'ye know?"

"Magic. Be careful—you were nearly off that time! Does your aunt know anything about those things you ate?"

"No."

"Very well. But you must promise not to eat those particular things again. Not even when you get the chance." Then as he saw the woe upon her face, "At least, not in quantities!"

"Cross my heart!" said Ann, relieved.