"There is no loud call for sorrow, doctor," I said loftily. "If a woman,
forty-eight years of age, a member of the Presbyterian church in good
and regular standing, cannot call upon one of her Sunday School scholars
without wrecking all the proprieties, how old must she be before she
can?"

The doctor did not answer my question. Instead, he looked reproachfully
at Alexander Abraham.

"Is this how you keep your word, Mr. Bennett?" he said. "I thought that
you promised me that you would not let anyone into the house."

"I didn't let her in," growled Mr. Bennett. "Good heavens, man, she
climbed in at an upstairs window, despite the presence on my grounds of
a policeman and a dog! What is to be done with a woman like that?"

"I do not understand what all this means," I said addressing myself to
the doctor and ignoring Alexander Abraham entirely, "but if my presence
here is so extremely inconvenient to all concerned, you can soon be
relieved of it. I am going at once."

"I am very sorry, my dear Peter," said the doctor impressively,
"but that is just what I cannot allow you to do. This house is under
quarantine for smallpox. You will have to stay here."

Smallpox! For the first and last time in my life, I openly lost my
temper with a man. I wheeled furiously upon Alexander Abraham.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I cried.

"Tell you!" he said, glaring at me. "When I first saw you it was too
late to tell you. I thought the kindest thing I could do was to hold my
tongue and let you get away in happy ignorance. This will teach you to
take a man's house by storm, madam!"

"Now, now, don't quarrel, my good people," interposed the doctor
seriously--but I saw a twinkle in his eye. "You'll have to spend some
time together under the same roof and you won't improve the situation
by disagreeing. You see, Peter, it was this way. Mr. Bennett was in
town yesterday--where, as you are aware, there is a bad outbreak of
smallpox--and took dinner in a boarding-house where one of the maids
was ill. Last night she developed unmistakable symptoms of smallpox. The
Board of Health at once got after all the people who were in the
house yesterday, so far as they could locate them, and put them under
quarantine. I came down here this morning and explained the matter to
Mr. Bennett. I brought Jeremiah Jeffries to guard the front of the house
and Mr. Bennett gave me his word of honour that he would not let anyone
in by the back way while I went to