Elsie, lassie! Would yon be the new doctor body ye've got
there?"

The voice came from a little old man, hobbling, with the aid of a
stick, along the water's edge. His small body was almost bent double,
and his whole person seemed engulfed in a huge straw hat, from under
which appeared his only prominent feature--a long, wispy, red beard.

The girl gave a little inarticulate sound, and Gilbert glanced at her.
Her stately gravity had vanished, her face was lit with a radiant
smile. She ran down to the brink of the stream.

"Yes, Uncle Hughie," she called, in a clear, silvery tone, with a new
caressing quality in it, "it's Dr. Allen. Do you want to speak to him?"

"Yes, yes. Oh, yes, indeed. Come away across, man! Come away!
There's a poor, sick body lying down the glen a wee bit. Come away,
man, and try your hand on him whatefer."

Gilbert glanced at the girl again, half doubtfully. This was so unlike
the first call to a patient which he had so often pictured that he was
taken unawares. She seemed to divine his thoughts.

"Will you go?" she said gently. "It is my uncle. He is always helping
some one in trouble. Perhaps there has been an accident in the mill."

"Of course, of course, I shall be glad," he cried, filled with
compunction; and with a word of farewell he sprang nimbly across the
stepping-stones.

"Do you need my help, Uncle Hughie?" called the silvery voice behind
him.

"Och, it's the good lassie you will be!" came from under the straw hat.
"No, no. It is jist a poor tramp body, and the doctor will be curing
him."

Gilbert reached the other side, and the queer little figure hobbled
toward him with outstretched hand. He took off his hat and made a
stately bow, and the young man looked at him with pleasure and
surprise. The little old man's face was wrinkled and brown, and bore
the marks of pain, but his eyes shone out with a warm, kind brilliancy
that went straight to the stranger's heart. They were the girl's eyes,
exactly, but with none of her lofty reserve.

"Ech! hech!" he cried, disappearing once more within the hat. "Indeed
and indeed, and it's the new doctor! Hoch, yes, yes, it is welcome you
will be to Elmbrook. Eh, and we would not be expecting such a
fine-looking one. Indeed, no! And it would be a fine Scottish name,
too, oh, a fine name indeed, Allen. And--you would not be hafing the
Gaelic, I suppose?" His eyes gleamed wistfully from between the hat
and the wh