in order to produce
beautiful things."

"But I cannot remember," Elspeth had to admit, with a sigh, to David,
"that she made any answer to that, except 'Thank you.'"

Grizel was nearly as reticent to David himself. Once only did she
break down for a moment in his presence. It was when he was telling
her that the issue of the book had been stopped.

"But I see you know already," he said. "Perhaps you even know
why--though he has not given any sufficient reason to Elspeth."

David had given his promise, she reminded him, not to ask her any
questions about Tommy.

"But I don't see why I should keep it," he said bluntly.

"Because you dislike him," she replied.

"Grizel," he declared, "I have tried hard to like him. I have thought
and thought about it, and I can't see that he has given me any just
cause to dislike him."

"And that," said Grizel, "makes you dislike him more than ever."

"I know that you cared for him once," David persisted, "and I know
that he wanted to marry you--"

But she would not let him go on. "David," she said, "I want to give up
my house, and I want you to take it. It is the real doctor's house of
Thrums, and people in need of you still keep ringing me up of nights.
The only door to your surgery is through my passage; it is I who
should be in lodgings now."

"Do you really think I would, Grizel!" he cried indignantly.

"Rather than see the dear house go into another's hands," she answered
steadily; "for I am determined to leave it. Dr. McQueen won't feel
strange when he looks down, David, if it is only you he sees moving
about the old rooms, instead of me."

"You are doing this for me, Grizel, and I won't have it."

"I give you my word," she told him, "that I am doing it for myself
alone. I am tired of keeping a house, and of all its worries. Men
don't know what they are."

She was smiling, but his brows wrinkled in pain. "Oh, Grizel!" he
said, and stopped. And then he cried, "Since when has Grizel ceased to
care for housekeeping?"

She did not say since when. I don't know whether she knew; but it was
since she and Tommy had ceased to correspond. David's words showed her
too suddenly how she had changed, and it was then that she broke down
before him--because she had ceased to care for housekeeping.

But she had her way, and early in the new year David and his wife were
established in their new home, with all Grizel's furniture, except
such as was needed for the two rooms rente