tendance upon wounded individuals?" she asked carelessly.

"If I thought it was," said he, "I'd make for the woods over yonder and
hide myself."

"Unnatural physician! I always supposed medical men to be the most
devoted to their profession, and the fondest of exercising it, of all
beings."

"As to devotion," said the doctor, "I agree with you--we _are_ a devoted
class. But as to exercise of any description, that is contrary to all
human inclination in such a temperature as this."

"And yet Miss Stanley endures it," said Miss Custer, and could have
bitten her tongue the next moment.

A grave expression settled upon the doctor's face. "Yes," said he, "her
brave spirit surmounts everything. She is of a different make-up from
all the other people I know. And, by the way, it always seems to me
irrelevant to bring her into comparison with ordinary mortals," he
added; and, getting up and settling his hat upon his head, he strode
off.

Miss Custer felt a pang of keen regret. "I have offended him," she
thought.

But at the supper-table, an hour or two later, there was no evidence of
offence in his attitude toward her, though it must be allowed that he
paid rather more attention to Ruth than usual when she came down stairs
freshened up in a light-colored lawn dress and her dark hair handsomely
coiled and ornamented with a half-blown rose. She sat just opposite
Doctor Ebling and beside Miss Custer, and stood the contrast with that
amber-eyed beauty very well. Doctor Ebling thought so, and it had a
tendency to elevate his spirits. The three carried on an animated
dialogue. Mr. Bruce, at the end of the table, was abstracted, and ate
his supper with great diligence, except when Mrs. Tascher, being his
nearest neighbor, addressed a remark to him: then he turned to her with
the utmost deference and replied as elaborately as friendly politeness
demanded.

"Any of you folks in for a boat-ride this evening?" called up Hugh from
the lower end of the table. "My Sally Lunn is anchored down by the big
oak if you want her, and here's the key," holding it up.

"Why, yes," said Doctor Ebling, taking it upon himself to answer. Hugh's
questions and remarks were usually addressed to the company
collectively, and the doctor generally was tacitly elected
spokesman.--"Don't you want to go, ladies?" he asked, "and you, Bruce?"

The ladies, Ruth and Miss Custer, assented with bright looks.

Mr. Bruce replied deliberatively that he was not