so pleasant to have people come and bring me rosebushes!"

"Or cowslips?" said Faith. "Then you would have a taste for cowslips."

"But then the people might get sick," said the doctor, waiving the
"bits of spring;"--"so I am content. How are you to-day?" He took
Faith's hand and felt it, and looked at her. The result did not seem to
be unsatisfactory on the whole.

"You mustn't read too much in that book," said he, glancing over at it.

"Why not?"

"You must keep quiet."

"For how long?"

"It depends. There is a little enemy of fever hanging about your
skirts, that I will oppose with something else; but all you can oppose
to him is quietness."

Faith thought of the words--"The rock of my defence and my
refuse"--what quietness was like that of their giving; but she said
nothing to the doctor.

Dr. Harrison gave Mrs. Derrick her directions on various points; then
taking his old-fashioned stand on the rug, surveyed the easy-chair and
its occupant and Reuben still behind it.

"By the way, Mrs. Derrick," said he carelessly,--"I have heard a pretty
story of your friend Mr. Linden." He noticed, but only that Faith had
glanced at him and was to all appearance quietly looking down at her
cowslips.

"I dare say, doctor," said Mrs. Derrick placidly. "I've heard a great
many."

"Have you heard it?"

"Heard what?" said Mrs. Derrick. "It's an old pretty story that
everybody loves him."

"I heard this only the other day," said the doctor. "It's not of that
kind. But stories will be stories--and people will tell them."

How the colour flushed and paled in Reuben's cheek!--he stood resting
his hands lightly on the back of Faith's chair, looking down. The
colour on Faith's cheek did not change.

"Who told this?" said Mrs. Derrick.

"People that have known the family. They say, he has managed to run
through a very large property, and that he leaves his sister now to
live upon charity."

It was impossible to tell from the doctor's manner whether he put any
faith in his story himself. It was as much like delivering a report as
bringing a charge. It might have been either! He saw Reuben's colour
become fixed and very high, but though the doctor could almost have
sworn that there was a rush of hid tears under the boy's drooping
eyelids, yet the lines about the mouth took the curl of an
irrepressible smile. Mrs. Derrick picked up two stitches, made a
third--then answered.

"So that's what _you_ call a pretty story!