Year: 1868

Fl nlT1f

 beyond, he called oftener.

 One morning his gray horse stood at th.

 gate longer than usual. He had to com,

 to vaccinate the children.

 One IS never safe until vaccinated: an6 1t Is my theory tfat so long as vaccine mat ter Will work In a-system, just so long there IS danger from smallpox. So I advise ev cry one to be re-vaccinated until no effec : IS produced, and would also repeat the experiment occasionally said Dr. Gorton

 And if this is Dr. Gorton's theory, it i, ] probably true one.

 think you had all better be vaccinate6 With the children continued the Doctor. 50 we Will! so we will, Polly! to be sure! exclaimed Polly's husband, in ter r1ble alright at the thought of the peril he might have been in all his life.

 And so they were.

 This is all your family, I believer said the Doctor, looking fixedly at Johnnv's arm, which was the last.

 If he had only cast his eyes up he must have seen Daisy on the stoop in full view Of the window, washing the red dasher- churn, Mrs, Lapham would keep to the old ways and the old things. Why. she actu- ally still cooked her breakfasts and dinners Dy the same deep fireplace, with the same heavy crane and trammels, though her nelghbors have used stoves for years and years, as we'll as rotary churns.) S 1t Was high up-and-down churn Daisy was wash ing; and the bending and rinsing- made . very healthful and becoming sort of gym nastlcs with dish-cloth instead of dumb bells. And 1t was really pity, if Dr. G r- ton had any artistic taste for effect of atti- tude and coloring, that he had not just glv- en ms eyellds one quiver upward; tor with her red cheeks, bare white arms, anu plump, swaying figure, Daisy looked as pretty just then as Rapbaels Madonna; though, to be sure, not bit like her. But It was not Dr. Gorton's way to look up. In deed, 1t was not likely, so wrapped was he In hls profession, that he even knew there was Daisy; only . consciousness, proba- ply, of some sort of living machine who had taken charge of the children's medi- cine and brought them water and broth.

 Certainly! certainly! Some folks are noticing, and some are not. Doctor Cor ton isn't like you or me, Polly about seeing what IS going on right under his nose, as 1t were, but then he has looked after his own business, and taken an uncommon in- terest in the children But no wonder they are so sweet don't suppose anybody could help that. However, it is droll that he shouldn't think of Daisy when she has always been here. It is droll, too, he shouldn't have seen her now standing right there in his very face and eyes, as it were, , chuckled Peter Lapham, when Doctor Cor ton had stepped out upon the stoop with his lancet and virus after he had been made to see Daisy.

 i ~But at this very moment the deceitful wretch was asking the girl to marry him, and actually, for all his pretended abstrac- tlon ana unconsciousness, this was his sole errand Tn coming that morning.

 We'll, so he told his story and asked his question, trying to put himself into Daisy s heart while he put his lance into her arm. And Daisy dropped her dumb-belIs and blushed, though it is doubtful If she was as much surprised as the noticing" Peter would have been.

 You need not answer me to-day I do not want you should. said the Doctor cut ting slip of plaster for the wounded arm. But see there are three pots of flowers on the window ledge, and to morrow when pass here, if the answer is Yes let the pot of daisies be in the middle"

 Then he got on his gray horse and rode away.

 The next morning when the sun threw off his white bed blankets and popped open his great yellow eye, the first thing he looked for was the window ledge; and there-yes, yes!-there stood the mignon- cite at one end, the rose geranium at the other, and, sure as daylight, the daisy in the middle.

 Bnt ah! The course of true love!

 s'We will have boiled dinner to-day. and boil that tongue, " sai Mrs Lapham. And immediately the great iron pot swung on the crane over the fire.

 "Well, said Daisy, to whom everything was ambrosia; I will get the vegetables. , i So off she went with tin pail on her arm 1 among the bean poles and corn rows in her pink calico gown and sun bonnet.

 Presently she heard the sound of hoof. and though she happened to be stopping for bean pod just then with her back that way, she saw under her arm and through her eyelashes that the horse was gray. He didn't stop then. We'll, Dr. Gorton had way of his own; and perhaps he would not call till it was time for him to look after the vaccination. No, probably not. But then he knew already; and so dhey were the same as engaged. Daisy l flushed and thrilled all over at the thought ana wondered if everybody could see by loohlng at her that something had happen ca slnee she went into the garden. So sne walked towards the house over the dan delions in the summer grass almost as lioht as though she had no body to carry, in sucn 9 maze of sweet and wondering thoughts, until sle came against the win doW-ledge and raised her hand to pick a daisy to wear in her hair. When, To! the rose geranium stood in the middle and the pot of daisies at one sidel

 It seemed the cat (not Jack who bounded into the first part of my story, but Cat as like him as two grains of sand) jumped through the open window, and overturned the daisies and the Doctor suit with them For when Bessy-who always had more fingers than she could employ in her own pies-picked up the pot, she imagined the tall geranium was shading 1t too much, and so reversed their positions.

 One may fancy whether there was the true ambrosial flavor to the corn and beans after all, to Daisy; whether she felt like betting the cat; and if the flowers kept the pink freshness she admired so much when she put them in their place.

 Perhaps he will say something when he comes next time," she thought with a flash of hope. But no; that wouldn't be like him. He won't!' she continued with 2 flash of dispair.

 But worse, he did not come. Nr Tan. ham wondered, and Mrs Lapham wonder. ed. To be sure there was Dr. Gaspill close at hand, who could perhaps pronounce just as well on the taking" of the vaccination