strong light showing the group up in outline, although it left the faces
indistinct.

The horseman had stopped and dismounted; then, leaving his horse
standing where it was, he came striding along the path towards the group
at the door.

Sylvia tried to speak, but the words would not come, as she stood with
one hand tightly pressed against her wildly beating heart. And then, as
the man halted in front of her, she saw that it was quite a young man,
and not her father at all.

"It is only someone come for the doctor. How disappointing!" was her
unspoken comment, and she was just going to tell him that the doctor had
not come home yet, when to her amazement he asked a question in a
surprised tone.

"May I ask why are you here?"

"We are waiting for Father, but he has not come yet. The woman in the
next house told us that she thought he had gone out Pig Hill way, and
that he would not be long before he was back. I hope that your business
with him is not urgent?" Her voice quavered slightly in spite of her
efforts to keep it steady, for surely it would be dreadful if her father
were called away to another case when Rupert was so badly in need of
care.

"Pardon me, but I do not seem to understand," said the man, with so much
bewilderment in his manner that Sylvia longed to laugh, but managed to
pull herself together and to maintain a decent gravity of expression.

"We are expecting Father, that is Dr. Plumstead, home every minute, and
when he comes he will find a very great surprise in store for him," she
said, flinging up her head with a happy gesture, and now her laugh would
have its way and rang out on the hot air, being promptly echoed by the
younger ones, who stood pressed close to her on both sides.

"But I am Dr. Plumstead, and I have just returned from a case at Pig
Hill," said the man.

It was at this moment that Nealie came hurrying to the door, and,
sweeping the others to the right and left to make way for her, stood in
front of the man, her face white as the handkerchief she held in her
hand, while her breath came in troubled gasps as if she had been running
until she was spent.

"Whom did you say that you were?" she demanded, her voice having a
sharp, dictatorial ring.

The stranger, who had merely lifted his hat when he spoke to Sylvia,
swept it off his head and held it in his hand when Nealie thrust herself
to the front.

"I am Dr. Plumstead, and this is my house," he answered. "But----"

Neal