marble torch, "so lyrically," Miss
Martha Hopkins said, that she was moved to write a poem about it. I
thought it a very nice poem, and I said so, when she read it to us.
But Doctor Geddes, who doesn't care for poetry, except Robert
Burns's, rubbed his nose.

"Oh, well, your grandmother and your aunts used to make
antimacassars and wall-pockets and paper flowers," he ruminated.
"Why shouldn't you make poetry if you feel like it?"

"You are to be pitied, Richard," said Miss Martha, with crushing
charity. "Such a disposition! And the older you grow the worse it
gets."

"Confound it, Martha!--"

"I do," said she.

Alicia looked at Richard with impersonal eyes. She looked at the
ruffled center of culture.

"Don't pay any attention to him, Miss Martha," she said, with a
charming smile. "Your poem is very pretty, and he knows it."

"He means well," said Miss Martha, resignedly.

"Now, you look here, Martha!" the doctor said angrily, "I won't have
anybody telling me to my face I mean well. You might as well call me
a fool outright."

"You are far from being a fool, Richard. And you do mean well.
Everybody knows that."

He turned appealingly to his dear Leetchy, and received his first
lesson in Domestic Science.

"Miss Martha is right, Richard," she decided.

"Leetchy," the doctor asked, when the mollified Miss Hopkins had
departed, "why did Martha go off grinning?"

"How should I know?" wondered Alicia, innocently. Then she looked at
him with Irish eyes: "Have you had your lunch, dear?" she asked.

"Lunch?" He looked bewildered.

"Because I'm going to fix Sophy's lunch now, and you may have yours
with her, if you like. I love to wait on you, Richard," she added,
and a beautiful color flooded her face.

He caught his breath. When she went back to the house, his eyes
followed her adoringly.

"Sophy," he said, huskily, "what does she see in me? Do you think
I'm good enough for _her_, Sophy?"

"I think you are quite good enough even for Alicia."

When he had gone, Alicia sat with her head against my knees. Of late
a touching gravity, a sweet seriousness, had settled upon her. Her
love for the big doctor was singularly clear-eyed and far-seeing.
There were going to be times when every ounce of skill, tact,
patience, love itself, would be called upon, for the reins must be
gossamer-light, invisible, but always firm and sure, that should
guide and tone down so impatient and fiery a nature as his. It was
ve