tting himself on record on a slab of copper four feet long.
Who sent it, anyway?"

Celia hunted carefully through the wrappings, and everybody finally
joined in the search, but no card appeared.

"I'm so sorry!" lamented Charlotte. "I shall never know whom to thank."

"It lets you out, anyhow," Jeff said, soothingly. "You won't have to
tell any lies. The thing is of about as much use as a bootjack."

"Why, but it's lovely!" protested Charlotte, with evident sincerity.
"Copper things are very highly valued just now, and the work on that is
artistic. Don't you see it is?"

"Can't see it," murmured Jeff. "But of course my not seeing it doesn't
count. I can't see the value of that idiotic old battered-up copper pail
you cherish so tenderly, but that's because I lack the true, heaven-born
artist's soul. Where are you going to put this, Fiddle?"

Charlotte's eyes grew absent. She was sending them in imagination across
the lawn to the little old brick house next door, which was soon to be
her home, as she had done every time a new gift arrived. There were a
good many puzzles of this sort in connection with her wedding gifts.
Where to put some of them she knew, with a thrill of pleasure, the
instant she set eyes on them; where in the world others could possibly
go was undoubtedly a serious question.

"Hello, here comes Andy!" called Just, from the window. "Give him a
chance at it. Perhaps he can use it somewhere in the surgery--as a
delicate way of cheering the patients when they feel as if perhaps
they'd better not have come."

Charlotte turned as the hall door swung open, admitting Dr. Andrew
Churchill and a fresh breath of October air.

Everybody turned about also. Into everybody's face came a look of
affectionate greeting. Even the eyes of the father and mother--and this,
just now, was the greatest test of all--showed the welcome to which
their own children were happily used.

The figure on the threshold was one to claim attention anywhere. It was
a strong figure with a look of life and intense physical vigour. The
face matched the body: it was fresh-coloured and finely molded; and
nobody who looked at it and into the clear gray eyes of Andrew Churchill
could fail to recognise the man behind.

Lanse, who was nearest, shook hands warmly. "It seems good to see you,
old fellow," he said, heartily. "If this whirl of work they tell me you
are in had kept up much longer, I should have turned patient myself and
sent f