Year: 1873

before my time. She would have sought
for the owner of the ring In the same
straightforward and exhaustive way as
if il had been q stray hoe found in our
garden. Those two lovers would have
been forced to stand and deliver their
names and their secret within a week.


Aunt Esther had brought me up in
the same way that she did everything
else; she never forgot to wind her
clock on every seventh day, and she
never failed to give me good measure of
home comfort, but it was not pressed
down nor running over. gave her
honest liking and respect without any
love, and she never missed it. Never
theless, it gave me a terrible shock
when her vigorous life was suddenly
arrested by stroke of paralysis. Our
only servant in her fright was helpless
as her mistress, but Miss Purdy, who
lived next door, came in to stay with
nay patient while ran through mid
night darkness down the mTenue and
the long village street for The doctor
| DIR. Gilmore was the name on the first
door that had light behind it. At the
first pull of the bell the handle came
off in my hand, but opened the door
and found myself in the Office. The
doctor lay on lounge sleeping heavily,
as if he had just thrown himself down
after hard days work. I called to
him in vain, and finally laid violent
hands on him. He must have been
dreaming some fearful thing, for he
seized my wrists in wise and roared,
"Now have you'll" before he opened
his eyes.


"You are mistaken, doctor; It is I
who have you," said, laughing. He
released my wrists and sat up with his
eyes very wide open.


4" And what are you going to do with
meP"


"Oh, you must come to my aunt at
Dovecetes, this very moment" and I
began to cry more heartily than / had
| laughed.


He took me up as easily as if I had
been baby, and laid me on the lounge.
"Now lie there perfectly still until my
carriage is ready" he said, as one hav-
| ing authority. In q few minutes he
brought me some innocent-looking stuff
IN a glass, which I drank without a
word, and my nerves grew steady again.
climbed into the little old-fashioned
sulky, in which there was but spare
room for its owner, a carriage that must



pic doctor who did not mean to drive
his own patients. contracted myself
into about the substance of a paper of
pins, and held my breath, but that sui
| ky was a tight fit indeed! I wore a
| thin summer dress, with only a straw
hat on my head, and, as my excitement
! less ened, the cool, sharp air of the
! September night pierced me like a
knife.


You are shivering," said the doctor,
wrapping one side of his round cloak
about me and holding me close to his
breast with one arm, while he drove his
horse at furious speed with the other.


" / give you a great deal of trouble,
| whispere into his beard.


"Not at all. 1t is all in my days
work." he said grufay. This was not
very gallant, but it made me more COM
Portable in mind, as it possibly was
meant to do.


He did all a doctor could for my
aunt, which was little enough. Time
and patience were all the prescriptions
that he gave to her or to me, but he
came every day, sometimes twice, rs he
perceived that time was growing short
and patience would soon have its per-
feet work.


The old story-old as when Cain went
courting into the land of Mods COM
ing, as my reader can see with half an
eve. I did not fall in love with MIR.
| Gilmore nor he with me-al at once;
but there grew to be an inexpressible
comfort In his rough sincerity, and the
warm hand clasp with which at every
visit he met and stilled my shrinking
nerves.


In the first week of orr acquaintance
confded to him my unwilling listening
in the avenue to the love-quarrel of
strangers. With his advice and assist
ance 1 sent carefully-wOrded adver-
| tisenent to the village paper. To judge
| by the pile of answers which received
describing every kind of ring that ever
was worn, one would think the earth
should have been sown as thick with
them as was the field of Canue after
the great slaughter of Carthaginian
knights. But not one of the answers
SO much as limited at a violet of sap
| phires with diamond centre.


In these lonely days saw a great
deal of my neighbor, Miss Purdy; she
! was one of those rare and blessed souls
who interpret literally the command to
| love ones neighbor as ones self. She
and her niece, Kate Purdy, lived to-
gether, as lived with Aunt Esther, and
a sort of fellow-feeling, from our simi-
lar conditions, made us wondrous kind
from the first. Kate was a sparkling
brunette, who made love TO everybody,
finale or female, Jew or GENTLE, bond
or free, ,"-it was all one to her. ] am q
very meek-looking person myself, light
haired, bIue-eyed, faded out-you al
most need dark background to see me
at all.


Kate and looked well together, and
stayed together chiefly for that reason
at first, afterward for strong and earn
est liking that lasted our lifetime. /
| told her all about the ring, and showed
her tine answers to my advertisements
and when our talk reached low water on
ether matters, we always fell back on
speculation about those two lovers and
| the sapphire ring. Kate was disposed
to treat it. more lightly than I could
| find it In my heart to do. She thought
1T far too pretty to hide its light in a
| bureau drawer, and after time I wore
it, thinking that in that way it might be
possibly seen and claimed by its owner
We had become very intimate in girls
| fashion before introduced Kate to
"my doctor" as / called him In my
heart They "took kindly" to each
other, but she did not at once begin to
vile the heart out of him, as / had seen
her do with other men.


why don't you make love to Dr.
Gilmore ?" / asked her at last. "You
are naturally a fisher of men, and the
prey is very scarce at Dovecotes."


Firstly" said Kate, "be,,ause you
| already have him in your own net, and
unless all signs fail, you will .Isoon land
him. Secondly, he is too feaIfully old
and grave / don't mean that he has
lived any great number of years, but he
is one of those who are born forty years
old, and that would make him at this
present time three-score-a -and-ten."


My world was well-nigh empty of
kith and kin when Aunt Esther died,
but was not near so doleful as ought
to have been. had very little money,
but / had youth and hope, and there
was-the doctor. Kate Purdy had been
helping me to set the house in order
u