dad used to come. I was a little boy an'
croupy, and he seemed big as a house when he came in at the door. He was
taller than you, and thin."

"Now, father," the old woman protested, "the young doctor ain't fat."

"He's fatter'n his gran'dad. But I ain't saying that I don't like it. I
like meat on a man's bones."

Richard laughed. "Just so that I don't go the way of Cousin Brin. You
know Brinsley Tyson, don't you?"

"He's the fat twin. Yes, I know him and David. David comes and reads to
me, but Brinsley went to Baltimore, and now he don't seem to remember
that we were boys together, and went to the Crossroads school."

After that they spoke of the little new teacher, and Richard revelled in
the praise they gave her. She was worshipped, they said, by the people
roundabout. There had never been another like her.

"_I think she was the most beautiful lady,_
_That ever was in the West Country_----"

was Richard's enlargement of their theme. In the weeks just past he had
seen much of her, and it had seemed to him that life began and ended with
his thought of her.

When he rose to go the old woman went to the door with him. "I guess we
owe you a lot by this time," she remarked; "you've made so many calls. It
cheers him up to have you, but you'd better stop now that he don't need
you. It's so far, and we ain't good pay like some of them."

Richard squared his shoulders--a characteristic gesture. "Don't bother
about the bill. I have a sort of sentiment about my grandfather's old
patients. It is a pleasure to know them and serve them."

"If you didn't mind taking your pay in chickens," she stated as he
mounted his horse, "we could let you have some broilers."

"You will need all you can raise." Then as his eyes swept the green hill
which sloped down to the river, he perceived an orderly line of waddling
fowls making their way toward the house.

"I'd like a white duck," he said, "if you could let me take her now."

He chose a meek and gentle creature who submitted to the separation from
the rest of her kind without rebellion. Tucked under Richard's arm, she
surveyed the world with some alarm, but presently, as he rode on with
her, she seemed to acquiesce in her abduction and faced the adventure
with serene eyes, murmuring now and then some note of demure
interrogation as she nestled quite confidently against the big man who
rode so easily his great white horse.

And thus they came to Bower's, to find Anne