iosity. And you won't find men boring their way into other folk's
concerns; it is a woman's failing, essentially a woman's." This was the
doctor's pet topic, and he pursued it until they had to part. He had
opened his door and was about to enter when he saw Gavinia passing on
her way home from the Den.

"Come here, my lass," he called to her, and then said inquisitively,
"I'm told Mr. McLean is at his tea with Miss Ailie every day?"

"And it's true," replied Gavinia, in huge delight, "and what's more, she
has given him some presents."

"You say so, lassie! What were they now?"

"I dinna ken," Gavinia had to admit, dejectedly. "She took them out o'
the ottoman, and it has aye been kept looked."

McQueen looked very knowingly at her. "Will he, think you?" he asked
mysteriously.

The maid seemed to understand, for she replied, promptly, "I hope he
will."

"But he hasna spiered her as yet, you think?"

"No," she said, "no, but he calls her Ailie, and wi' the gentry it's but
one loup frae that to spiering."

"Maybe," answered the doctor, "but it's a loup they often bogle at. I'se
uphaud he's close on fifty, Gavinia?"

"There's no denying he is by his best," she said regretfully, and then
added, with spirit, "but Miss Ailie's no heavy, and in thae grite arms
o' his he could daidle her as if she were an infant."

This bewildered McQueen, and he asked, "What are you blethering about,
Gavinia?" to which she replied, regally, "Wha carries me, wears me!" The
doctor concluded that it must be Den language.

"And I hope he's good enough for her," continued Miss Ailie's
warm-hearted maid, "for she deserves a good ane."

"She does," McQueen agreed heartily; "ay, and I believe he is, for he
breathes through his nose instead of through his mouth; and let me tell
you, Gavinia, that's the one thing to be sure of in a man before you
take him for better or worse."

The astounded maid replied, "I'll ken better things than that about my
lad afore I take him," but the doctor assured her that it was the box
which held them all, "though you maun tell no one, lassie, for it's my
one discovery in five and thirty years of practice."

Seeing that, despite his bantering tone, he was speaking seriously, she
pressed him for his meaning, but he only replied sadly, "You're like the
rest, Gavinia, I see it breaking out on you in spots."

"An illness!" she cried, in alarm.

"Ay, lassie, an illness called curiosity. I had just been telli