ed, in conclusion, "we'd as lief get
underway at dawn."

"Very good," said the doctor. "And--you were asking about my fee--were
you not? You'll have to pay, you know--if you can--for I believe
in--that sort of thing. Could you manage three dollars?"

"We was 'lowin'," the skipper answered, "t' pay about seven when we sold
the v'y'ge in the fall. 'Tis a wonderful bad hand Bill Sparks has got."

"Let it be seven," said the doctor, quickly. "The balance may go, you
know, to help some poor devil who hasn't a penny. Send it to me in the
fall if----"

The skipper looked up in mild inquiry.

"Well," said the doctor, with a nervous smile, "if we're all here, you
know."

"Oh," said the skipper, with a large wave of the hand, "_that's God's_
business."

They put out at dawn--into a sea as wild as ever I knew an open boat to
brave. The doctor bade us a merry good-bye; and he waved his hand,
shouting that which the wind swept away, as the boat darted off towards
South Tickle. My sister and I went to the heads of Good Promise to watch
the little craft on her way. The clouds were low and black--torn by the
wind--driving up from the southwest like mad: threatening still heavier
weather. We followed the skiff with my father's glass--saw her beat
bravely on, reeling through the seas, smothered in spray--until she was
but a black speck on the vast, angry waste, and, at last, vanished
altogether in the spume and thickening fog. Then we went back to my
father's house, prayerfully wishing the doctor safe voyage to Wreck
Cove; and all that day, and all the next, while the gale still blew, my
sister was nervous and downcast, often at the window, often on the
heads, forever sighing as she went about the work of the house. And when
I saw her thus distraught and colourless--no warm light in her eyes--no
bloom on her dimpled cheeks--no merry smile lurking about the corners of
her sweet mouth--I was fretted beyond description; and I determined
this: that when the doctor got back from Wreck Cove I should report her
case to him, whether she liked it or not, with every symptom I had
observed, and entreat him, by the love and admiration in which I held
him, to cure her of her malady, whatever the cost.

* * * * *

On the evening of the third day, when the sea was gone down and the wind
was blowing fair and mild from the south, I sat with my sister at the
broad window, where was the outlook upon great hills, an