with one small scalp lock. But the just and perfect
dome to which his close lying ears were attached needed no hair to adorn
it. You felt glad that nothing shaded the benevolence of his all-over
forehead. By contrast he emphasized the sullenness of my father; yet
when occasion had pressed there never was a readier hand than
Skenedonk's to kill.

I tossed the cover back to spring out of bed with a whoop. But a woman
in a high cap with ribbons hanging down to her heels, and a dress short
enough to show her shoes, stepped into the room and made a courtesy. Her
face fell easily into creases when she talked, and gave you the feeling
that it was too soft of flesh. Indeed, her eyes were cushioned all
around. She spoke and Skenedonk answered her in French. The meaning of
every word broke through my mind as fire breaks through paper.

"Madame de Ferrier sent me to inquire how the young gentleman is."

Skenedonk lessened the rims around his eyes. My father grunted.

"Did Madame de Ferrier say 'the young gentleman?'" Skenedonk inquired.

"I was told to inquire. I am her servant Ernestine," said the woman, her
face creased with the anxiety of responding to questions.

"Tell Madame de Ferrier that the young gentleman is much better, and
will go home to the lodges to-day."

"She said I was to wait upon him, and give him his breakfast under the
doctor's direction."

"Say with thanks to Madame de Ferrier that I wait upon him."

Ernestine again courtesied, and made way for Doctor Chantry. He came in
quite good natured, and greeted all of us, his inferiors, with a
humility I then thought touching, but learned afterwards to distrust.
My head already felt the healing blood, and I was ravenous for food. He
bound it with fresh bandages, and opened a box full of glittering
knives, taking out a small sheath. From this he made a point of steel
spring like lightning.

"We will bring the wholesome lancet again into play, my lad," said
Doctor Chantry. I waited in uncertainty with my feet on the floor and my
hands on the side of the couch, while he carefully removed coat and
waistcoat and turned up his sleeves.

"Ernestine, bring the basin," he commanded.

My father may have thought the doctor was about to inflict a vicarious
puncture on himself. Skenedonk, with respect for civilized surgery,
waited. I did not wait. The operator bared me to the elbow and showed a
piece of plaster already sticking on my arm. The conviction of being
out