ve the sink.

"I dunno," answered the new doctor's housekeeper. "It's no use talkin'
about it, anyhow. There's more harm done by talkin' over things than
anything else in the world."

Miss Long shrugged her shoulders impatiently. That was Mrs. Munn's
invariable answer. She had been old Dr. Williams' housekeeper for ten
years, and had met all questions regarding his private affairs by the
vague formula, "I dunno." A close woman was Mrs. Mum, as the village
called her; a treasure of a woman, old Dr. Williams had said, when he
recommended her to his young successor.

Ella Anne sighed. "That pipe must 'a' fell down the well," she
remarked, with an accent of despair that was not all caused by the
supposed catastrophe.

"Is he going to have them three downstairs rooms for his offices, or
only two?" she ventured again.

Mrs. Munn stared vacantly. "I dunno," she said. "Mebby he is."

"There! If there isn't that troublesome pipe right under your nose,
Ella Anne!" cried Miss Weir, pouncing upon it where it lay on the
window-sill. "Your head is so full of the new doctor you can't see
straight. Here, Jake!"

She started for the door, but before she reached it a great many things
happened. First, Mrs. Sawyer, gowned, bonneted and shawled, though the
sun promised to be blazing hot before it set, came down the stairs at a
reckless pace. She was followed by Miss Arabella Winters, half hidden
beneath a bundle of coats and wraps suited for children of all ages.
As the two ran for the door, Mrs. Winters with a bottle of milk, Miss
Long with a forgotten pie, and Mrs. Munn, who had snatched up a basket
of newly laundered clothes, under the mistaken idea that they, too,
were for the orphan, all rushed at the same instant for the same
portal, and jammed together between the door-posts. The Duke of
Wellington, still grasping the rescued pipe, threw herself upon the
human wedge and drove it, helter-skelter, down the steps; and
simultaneously there arose, loud and clear, not from Cameron's
Crossing, some miles distant, but just from the ravine bridge, scarcely
a quarter of a mile away, the shrill whistle of the train.

The six women turned and looked at each other in an instant's paralyzed
dismay. Jake Sawyer opened his mouth and gave forth a slight variation
of his despairing motto, "We've missed that train, as sure as blazes!"

No one had courage to deny the assertion. When the Lakeview & Simcoe
Railroad Company laid