He eyed the books on the walls, then the great bottles visible
through the glass doors on the cupboard shelves. Those bottles were
mostly of a cloudy green or brown, but one among them caught the
light and shone as if filled with liquid rubies. That was valerian,
but Jerome did not know it; he only thought it must be a very strong
medicine to have such a bright color. He also thought that the doctor
must have mixed all those medicines from rules in those great books,
and a sudden feverish desire to look into them seized him. However,
neither his pride nor his timidity would have allowed him to touch
one of those books, even if he had not expected the doctor to enter
every moment.

He waited quite a little time, however. He could hear the far-off
tinkle of silver and clink of china, and knew the family were at
dinner. "Won't leave his dinner for me," thought Jerome, with an
unrighteous bitterness of humility, recognizing the fact that he
could not expect him to. "Might have planted an hour longer."

Then came a clang of the knocker, and this time the girl ushered into
the study a clamping, red-faced man in a shabby coat. Jerome
recognized him as a young farmer who lived three miles or so out of
the village. He blushed and stumbled, with a kind of grim
awkwardness, even before the simple girl delivering herself of her
formula of welcome. He would not sit down; he stood by the corner of
a medicine-cupboard, settling heavily into his boots, waiting.

When the girl had gone he looked at Jerome, and gave a vague and
furtive "Hullo!" in simple recognition of his presence, as it were.
He did not know who the boy was, never being easily certain as to
identities of any but old acquaintances--not from high indifference
and dislike, like the doctor, but from dulness of observation.

Jerome nodded in response to the man's salutation. "I can't ask the
doctor before him," he thought, anxiously.

The man rested heavily, first on one leg, then on the other. "Been
waitin' long?" he grunted, finally.

"Quite a while."

"Hope my horse 'll stan'," said the man; "headed towards home, an'
load off."

"The doctor can tend to you first," Jerome said, eagerly.

The man gave a nod of assent. Thanks, as elegancies of social
intercourse, were alarming, and savored of affectation, to him. He
had thanked the Lord, from his heart, for all his known and unknown
gifts, but his gratitude towards his fellow-men had never overcome
his bashful