returned graciously.

The maid gave her a grateful look and conducted her though several
rooms, all in accord with the sumptuous reception-room, to a tiny
private office, where she opened the door and stood respectfully on
one side.

The visitor's submissive mood all at once vanished. She stared
resentfully at the cramped quarters, and entered reluctantly, as if
with a feeling of being thrust willy-nilly into a labelled pill-box. A
man was writing at a desk in a corner, and he continued writing.

"Take a chair, please," he said crisply, without looking up. And this
was the only sign to indicate that he was aware that his privacy had
been invaded.

Miss Willis's dark eyes flashed. She seemed about to make an indignant
rejoinder, but thought better of it. She ignored the invitation to sit
down, however, and by and by the circumstance caught the writer's
attention; he bent a quick, surprised look round at her--then
proceeded with his writing. He did not repeat the request.

He presently finished his task, noted the time, and made an entry upon
a tabulated sheet beside him; he then filed the memorandum upon a
hook, and swung round in his chair, facing the intruder--for such the
girl felt herself to be.

Fortunately Miss Willis was not without a sense of humor, and she was
able to perceive an amusing quality in her reception to-day. Such
supreme indifference to her very existence was so wholly foreign to
anything in her past experience, that she was acutely sensible of its
freshness and novelty.

But now the man became all at once impressed with the circumstance
that she was still standing, and he bounded guiltily to his feet.

"Pardon me!" he exclaimed in confusion. "I was--was very busy when you
came in. Won't you please have this chair?" He awkwardly shoved one
forward.

The man was young; Miss Willis was unable to determine whether he was
good-looking, or ugly; whether he was the right sort, or impossible;
so she accepted the proffered chair.

He resumed his own seat, and leaned one arm wearily upon the desk.
Already he had forgotten his momentary embarrassment, and he was now
regarding the girl simply as a patient.

"Dr. Leonard has given me the history of your case," he informed her
in a matter of fact way. "He requests that I continue with it--unless,
of course, you prefer that he treat you himself." He got up as he
spoke, and Miss Willis decided that he was good-looking and young, and
that he was tall