rst impulse, as we said, when she saw the obnoxious doctor coming
towards her now, was to fly; her second one of anger with herself for
the first.

"I'm on my own ground," she thought with some of the old Squire's honest
pride stirring her veins, "I think I will not run away from the
popinjay."

It was hard to know just how such a dislike to Dr. Eben Williams had
grown up in Hetty's friendly heart. He had come some four years before
to practise medicine at Lonway Four Corners. His bright and cordial
face, his social manner, his superior education, readiness, and
resource, had quickly won away many patients from old Dr. Tuthill, who
still drove about the country as he had driven for half a century, with
a ponderous black leather case full of calomel and jalap swung under his
sulky. A few old families, the Gunns among the number, adhered
faithfully to the old doctor, and became bitter partisans against the
new one.

"Let him stick to the Corners: if they like him there, they're welcome
to him. He needn't be trying to get all Welbury besides," they said
angrily. "Welbury's done very well for a doctor, these good many years:
since before Eben Williams was born, for that matter;" and words ran
high in the warfare. Squire Gunn was one of the most violent of Dr.
Williams's opposers; and when, a few days before his death, old Dr.
Tuthill had timidly suggested that it might be well to have a
consultation, the Squire broke out with:

"Not that damned Eben Williams then. I won't have that damned rascal set
foot in this house. You're a fool, Tuthill, to let that young upstart
get all your practice as he's a doing."

The old man smiled sadly. He did not in the least share his friends'
hostility to the handsome, young, and energetic physician who was so
plainly soon to be his successor in the county.

"Ah, Squire!" he said, "you forget how old you and I are. It is nearly
my time to pass on, and make room for a younger man. Eben's a good
doctor. I'd rather he'd have the circuit here than anybody I know."

"Damned interloper! let him wait till you're dead," growled the Squire.
"He shan't have a hand in finishing me off at any rate. I don't want any
of their new-fangled notions." And the Squire died as he had lived, on
the old plan, with the old doctor.

When Eben Williams saw that he was about to meet Hetty Gunn, his
emotions were hardly less conflicting than hers. He, too, would have
liked to escape the meeting, for he had u