am sorry we don't amount to more," said Jaquith, smiling, "But--I
think my glue is hardening, Mrs. Tree. Tell me where Lily Bent is,
that's a dear good soul, and why she stays away so long."

"I can't!" cried the old woman, and she wrung her hands. "I cannot,
Willy."

"You cannot, and my mother will not," repeated William Jaquith, slowly.
"And there is no one else I can or will ask. Why can you not tell me,
Mrs. Tree? I think you have no right to refuse me so much information."

"Because I promised not to tell you!" cried Mrs. Tree. "There! don't
speak to me, or I shall go into a caniption! If I had known, I never
would have promised. I never made a promise yet that I wasn't sorry for.
Dear me, Sirs! I wonder if ever anybody was so pestered as I am.

"There! there's James Stedman. Call him over here! and don't you speak a
word to me, Willy Jaquith, but finish those plants, if you are ever
going to."

Obeying Jaquith's hail, Doctor Stedman, who had been for passing with a
bow and a wave of the hand, turned and came up the garden walk.

"Good morning, James Stedman," said Mrs. Tree. "You haven't been near me
for a month. I might be dead and buried twenty times over for all you
know or care about me. A pretty kind of doctor you are!"

"What do you want of me, Mrs. Tree?" asked Doctor Stedman, laughing, and
shaking the little brown hand held out to him. "I'll come once a week,
if you don't take care, and then what would you say? What do you want of
me, my lady?"

"I don't want my bones crushed, just for the sake of giving you the job
of mending them," said the old lady. "I'd as lief shake paws with a
grizzly bear. You are getting to look rather like one, my poor James.
I've always told you that if you would only shave, you might have a
better chance--but never mind about that now. You were wanting to know
where Lily Bent was."

"Was I?" said Doctor Stedman, wondering. "Lily Bent! why, I haven't--"

"Yes, you have," said Mrs. Tree, sharply. "Or if you haven't, you ought
to be ashamed of yourself. She is staying with George Greenwell's folks,
over at Parsonsbridge; his wife was her father's sister, a wall-eyed
woman with crockery teeth. George Greenwell, Parsonsbridge, do you
hear? There! now I must go and take my nap, and plague take everybody, I
say. Good morning to you!"

Rising from her seat with amazing celerity, she whisked into the house
before Doctor Stedman's astonished eyes, and closed the door smartly