l professional custom of giving notice of his whereabouts, that he
was going to Mrs. Graham's. A prompt inquiry came from the kitchen to
know if anything ailed her, to which the doctor returned a scornful
negative and escaped through the side-door which gave entrance both to
the study and the dining-room. There was the usual service at
Marilla's meeting-house, but she had not ventured out to attend it,
giving the weather and a grumbling toothache for her reasons, though
she concealed the fact that the faithless town milliner had
disappointed her about finishing her winter bonnet. Marilla had begun
life with certain opinions which she had never changed, though time
and occasion had lessened the value of some of them. She liked to
count herself among those who are persecuted for conscience's sake,
and was immensely fond of an argument and of having it known that she
was a dissenter from the First Parish Church.

Mrs. Graham looked up with surprise from her book to see the doctor
coming in from the street, and, being helplessly lame, sat still, and
put out her hand to greet him, with a very pleased look on her face.
"Is there anything the matter with me?" she asked. "I have begun to
think you don't care to associate with well people; you don't usually
go to church in the afternoon either, so you haven't taken refuge here
because Mr. Talcot is ill. I must say that I missed hearing the bell;
I shall lose myself altogether by the middle of the week. One must
have some landmarks."

"Marilla complained yesterday that she was all at sea because her
apple pies gave out a day too soon. She put the bread to rise the
wrong night, and everything went wrong about the sweeping. It has been
a week of great domestic calamity with us, but Nan confided to me
this morning that there was some trouble with our bonnet into the
bargain. I had forgotten it was time for that," said the doctor,
laughing. "We always have a season of great anxiety and disaster until
the bonnet question is settled. I keep out of the way as much as I
can. Once I tried to be amusing, and said it was a pity the women did
not follow their grandmothers' fashion and make a good Leghorn
structure last ten years and have no more trouble about it; but I was
assured that there wasn't a milliner now living who could set such an
arrangement going."

"Marilla's taste is not what one might call commonplace," said Mrs.
Graham, with a smile. "I think her summer head-covering was