Miss Ellen'll be glad to see you."

The blacks covered the mile from the station as they had never covered
it before, and Burns was in the house five minutes before they had
expected him.

"Mother, here's your big boy.--Dad, here I am--here's Red. Bless your
hearts--you wanted me, didn't you?"

They could hardly tell him how they had wanted him, but he saw it in
their faces.

"I've got to take the four o'clock back--worse luck!--for some
operations I can't postpone. But between now and then I'm going to look
you over and set you straight, and I'll be back again in two days if you
need me. Now for it. Mother first. Come here, Aunt Ellen, and tell me
all about her."

R. P. Burns, M.D., had never been quicker nor more thorough at
examination of a pair of patients than with these. He went straight at
them both, each in the presence of the other, Miss Mathewson capably
assisting. With his most professional air he asked his questions,
applied his trained senses to the searching tests made of special
organs, and gave directions for future treatment. Then he sat back and
looked at them.

"Do I appear worried about her, Dad?"

"Why, you don't seem to, Red."

"Miss Mathewson, should you gather from my appearance that I am consumed
with anxiety?"

"I think you seem very much relieved, Doctor Burns."

"Mother, as you look at Dad over on the couch there, does he strike you
as appearing like a frightfully sick man?"

Mrs. Burns smiled faintly in the direction of the couch, but her eyes
came immediately back to her son's. "He seems a good deal better since
you came, Redfield."

"There's not a thing the matter with either of you except what can be
fixed up in a week. You've got scared to death about each other, and
that's pulled you both down. What you need more than anything else is to
go to a circus--and, by George!--Since I didn't observe any tents in the
darkness as we drove along, you shall have one come to you. Look here!
Did you know I'd kept up my old athletic stunts these nine years since I
left college?"

He pulled off his coat, waistcoat, collar, shoes, rolled his
shirt-sleeves as high as they would go, and turned a series of
handsprings across the wide room. Then he stood on his head; he balanced
chairs on his chin; he seized his father's hickory stick and went
through a set of military evolutions. Then he put on his shoes, eyeing
his patients with satisfaction. His mother had lifted her head to watch
h