s office?"

"Yes, but I haven't been there for some time. I never asked any
questions."

The doctor turned and looked at Carroll. Then he went out of the
room, with Allbright following, and gave him some directions. He
asked for a glass two-thirds full of water and poured some dark drops
into it.

"The minute he gets conscious again give him a spoonful of this," he
said, "and you had better sit beside him and watch him." Then he
turned to Allbright's sister, who was trembling from head to foot
with a nervous chill. "You take a dose of that whiskey your brother
gave him," he said, jerking his shoulder towards the inner room,
"then go to bed, and don't worry your head about him."

"Oh, doctor, he isn't going to die here?"

"Die here? No, nor nowhere else for one while. There is nothing the
matter with the man except he bumped his head rather too hard for
comfort."

"How long is he likely to be here on their hands?" inquired the
down-stairs woman.

"He will be able to go home in the morning, I think," said the doctor.

"Oh, doctor, you aren't going to go away and leave us with a strange
man as sick as he is?" asked Allbright's sister, hysterically. She
shook so that she could scarcely speak.

"You won't have to worry half so much over a strange man as you would
over one you know," replied the doctor, jocosely, "and he is not very
sick. He will be all right soon. Now you take some of your brother's
medicine and go to bed, for I have six cases to visit to-night before
I go home, and I don't want another."

Allbright's sister bridled with an odd, inexplicable pride. She did
not like to be a burden on her brother, nor make trouble, but there
was a certain satisfaction in having the down-stairs woman, who, she
had always suspected, rather made light of her ailments, hear for
herself that she was undoubtedly delicate. Even the minor and
apparently paradoxical pretensions of life are dear to their
possessors in lieu of others.

"Very well. I suppose I've got to mind the doctor," she replied, and
even smiled foolishly and blushed.

The doctor turned to Allbright.

"I think he will be all right in the morning," he said; "a bit
light-headed, of course, but all right. However, don't let him go
home before noon, on your life. I will look in in the morning before
he goes." And then he turned to Allbright's sister. "On second
thought, I will let you make a good big bowl of that gruel of yours
before you go to bed," he