and entertaining that when the doctor went away he hardly
thought of the latter. He said to himself as he went down town, "What a
remarkably brilliant woman Mrs. Tascher must have been in her day! And
is yet, for that matter. Husband been dead six years: wonder why she
never married again?"

Then he wondered with a slight feeling of uneasiness where Ruth had kept
herself all the evening. "How affectionately and admiringly Mrs. Tascher
always speaks of Ruth!" he said, and added, "Well, she is a noble girl."

There was an indefinable hardness in Ruth's manner the next morning. Her
voice was hollow and her smile seemed ironical, though she was unusually
gay. Mrs. Tascher, who observed her closely and with some uneasiness,
thought her mockingly attentive to Miss Custer. Something was said at
the dinner-table again about the doctor's promise to read to Miss
Custer, and Ruth exclaimed, "By all means!--Miss Custer, make him stay
at home and read you that poem."

The doctor of course fell readily in with the idea, and said he would
not go down town this time to see if there were any orders: if anybody
wanted him it was generally known that if he was not in his office he
was at his boarding-place.

"Why _did_ you do it?" said Mrs. Tascher, putting her handkerchief on
her head and going down to the gate with Ruth.

"Because," said Ruth with drawn lips and heaving bosom, "I do not want
to get him unfairly. If there is some one else who interests him more
than I, he is still at liberty to choose."

"Ruth," said Mrs. Tascher, and her eyes flashed, "do you think she is
getting him fairly? You have no conception of the scheming of that
woman."

"Oh yes, indeed I believe I know it all," said Ruth, and hurried away.

In a few days school closed, and Ruth packed her trunk and went up to
Merton, a little village about twenty miles distant, to visit her aunt.
Almost as soon as she was gone Miss Custer was taken sick. Aunt Ruby
insisted upon her occupying the spare bedroom, a cool, spacious
apartment opening off the back sitting-room. The professional services
of Doctor Ebling were of course engaged at once, and he proved himself
very attentive at least.

To save appearances and for Ruth's sake, although she had little hope,
Mrs. Tascher took up her position in the sick-room and compelled the
doctor to give all his directions to her. He pronounced the malady a low
fever brought on by the extreme heat of the season. Mrs. Tascher t