?" she asked wistfully.

Looking up, the doctor noticed that Pearl had picked up a newspaper
and appeared to be not listening at all.

"If I had a girl, Libby Anne," he said, very slowly, "I might stay
away a long time, but I'd come back sometime, oh, sure; and while I
was away I'd want my girl to lie still, if she had a cold and was out
in a tent trying to get better to go to her grandmother's, and I'd
want my girl to be just as happy as she could be, and always be sure
that I would come back."

"I like you, Doctor," she said, after a pause, "and if I wasn't Bud's
girl I would like to be yours. Maybe Pearl Watson would be your girl,
Doctor," she said quickly. "I'll ask her when she comes, if you
like?"

"I wish you would, Libby Anne," he said gravely.

When he looked up Pearl had gone.

It was a week before the doctor saw Pearl. One night he met her
coming home from school. It was the first day of March, and it seemed
like the first day of spring as well. From a cloudless sky the
afternoon sun poured down its warmth and heat.

The doctor turned his horses and asked if he might drive her home.

"Pearl," he said, with an' unmistakable twinkle in his eye, "I want
to see you about Libby Anne. I hope you will humour her in any way
you can."

Pearl stared at him in surprise--then suddenly the colour rose in her
cheeks as she comprehended his meaning.

"Even if she asks you to do very hard things," he went on.

"She hasn't asked me yet," said Pearl honestly.

"Is it possible that Libby Anne has forgotten me like that? Well, I
believe it is better for me to do it myself, anyway. How old are you,
Pearl?"

"I was fifteen my last birthday."

"Don't put it that way," he corrected. "That's all right when you're
giving your age in school, but just now I'd rather hear you say that
you will be sixteen on your next birthday, because sixteen and three
make nineteen, and when you're nineteen you will be quite a grown-up
young lady."

"Oh, that's a long time ahead," said Pearl.

"Quite a while," he agreed, "but I am going to ask you that question
which Libby Anne has overlooked, just three years from to-day. We can
easily remember the date, March the first. It may be a cold, dark,
wintry day, with the wind from the north, or it may be bright and
full of sunshine like to-day. That will just depend on your answer."

He was looking straight into her honest brown eyes as he spoke. It
was hard for him to realize that she