Chapter 18

DOCTOR'S ORDERS

Dr. Helen, dismissing her last patient at the office door, glanced into the waiting-room. To her surprise, she saw Alice sitting there with a magazine in her hand.

"Why, my dear, what is wrong? Are you ill? Come in here." Alice rose and followed her into the little white room.

"Nothing is wrong. I wanted to see you alone for a few minutes, and I thought this was the best way to do it. Are you quite free now?"

"Entirely. Sit down in this comfortable chair. I was startled. To have you fall ill after a week with us would be distressing."

"It has been such a dear week!" sighed Alice. "And I've rested all the time and have loved being with the girls. No, I'm quite well. But I had a letter from Mrs. Langdon, at Dexter, you know, just before I left home, and she told me I might tell you, if I cared to, what she has never let me tell any one outside the family,--that is, that I am one of the girls she is helping through college. I'm glad she said I might, for I've often wished Catherine knew, and it will be next best if you do."

"It is a rather trying condition of Mrs. Langdon's," said Dr. Helen sympathetically, "and sometimes creates difficult situations for the girls concerned, but I long ago gave up hope that she would ever change her ways. I quite understand how you feel, because, during my last two years at Dexter, I was one of her girls, too."

"You?" Alice's tone expressed the deepest surprise, and Dr. Helen continued.

"My father could not afford to send me, and I earned the money for my first two years, and was struggling along, trying to spend several hours a day earning money and at the same time to keep up with my work, when Mrs. Langdon, who was staying at home that winter, heard about me from friends. She helped me finish my college course, and gave me substantial aid in taking my professional course. I repaid the money afterward, but I couldn't repay the kindness."

"She is wonderfully kind," said Alice, "though her queer ways make you forget it sometimes. I had had letters from her before I left home the first year, of course, about the business part, and I went on, feeling that I wasn't going entirely among strangers, but she paid no attention to me at all. It was only by chance that I met her in the spring through Hannah."

"Poor child! You must have been much disappointed and very lonely at first. But she is a friend worth having, in spite of her peculiarities. I am glad she let you share your secret with me. Did she say anything about her own health when she wrote? I almost never hear from her."

"Not a word. But she asked me to call on her old friend, Madam Kittredge, while I was here."

"She is our pastor's mother, a beautiful woman, and nearly blind. You must certainly call. Catherine always makes the rounds of the old ladies among our patients once a summer, and she loves to go to Madam Kittredge's. She must take you. I wonder--What is that? Come!"

A rustling of skirts and the sound of whispers was heard in the waiting-room. In answer to the doctor's invitation, the door was slowly opened, and Hannah put her head in at the crack, Frieda's appearing just below it, and Catherine's just above.

"Well, here you are!" cried Hannah. "We've been searching the house from attic to cellar for Alice, and finally had an inspiration and came here."

"Anything so exclusive as this," remarked Catherine, as she entered, "makes the rest of us jealous."

"Fearfully chealous," said Frieda earnestly, putting her arm around Alice's neck, and perching on the arm of her chair.

Hannah and Catherine sat down on the window-seat, pushing the curtains out of the way as they did so.

"Mother really wanted to have her office curtains made of antiseptic gauze," said Catherine. "Why don't you two say anything?"

"You interrupted me just as I was having an inspiration," said her mother.

"O, what a pity," sighed Hannah. "Because Catherine is bored."

"Bored? Catherine? Did she tell you so?"

"Yes, I did," said Catherine stoutly. "I knew they were, too; and I thought if I owned up that I was, they would say they were, but they won't."

"Incorruptible politeness!" said Dr. Helen. "How do you account for your own sudden ennui?"

"It's not just to-day," said Catherine. "I really think my life is rather dull, anyhow. Of course, having the girls here is quite an event, but I wish there were big, exciting things I had to do or see to. Mending, and helping Inga make salads and beds, and even going to college is tiresome. Just what every one else does. And the worst of it is that every one expects me to be enthusiastic all the time!"

They all laughed at Catherine's disconsolate tone, but Dr. Helen looked professional. "This heat is enough to make any one cross," she said. "I suppose the rest of you feel the same way, but, being guests, don't dare say so?"

"Do prescribe for us, Dr. Helen," begged Hannah. "I don't feel especially bored just now, but I often do. Going to Europe was the only event in my life!"

"And going to college in mine!" said Alice.

"Coming here is all that has ever happened to me," said Frieda solemnly.

"You poor things! It is a serious state of affairs. I suppose you pine for kidnappers, or lovers or financial difficulties or fearful illnesses or Arctic explorations."

"Exactly!" cried Catherine. "Especially the last, on a day like this. But, really, Mother, of course, I don't feel as I said more than once in a great while, and I was talking to amuse myself; but can't you suggest something for us to do this afternoon? The more we lie around and keep cool, the warmer we grow. The Boat Club seems to have tired of picnics, and I want to do something while Alice is here,--something really interesting and pleasant to remember, something we didn't plan ourselves."

"Yes, do tell us something," the others pleaded.

Dr. Helen drew a prescription pad to her.

"Don't talk," she said, "while I am thinking. I'll undertake the case, if you will all agree to follow orders exactly, and in case of a relapse, to remember and act upon the spirit of to-day's prescription."

"Agreed!" they chorused, and then sat in silence and watched her hand as it moved over the little sheets. These she folded like powder-papers, endorsed on the outside, and handed over to her patients.

"To be taken at half-past three o'clock, in good spirits and your prettiest afternoon frock," read Hannah. "I didn't suppose that you would prescribe spirits, Dr. Helen! What does yours say, Catherine?"

"They are all alike on the outside," said Dr. Helen. "Now run away and play. I have telephoning to do, and mustn't be bothered."

They bent over her for kisses and danced away, looking anything but bored.

At half-past three, dressed according to orders, they gathered on the porch, and at a signal opened their little papers.

There was a minute of silence, and then their eyes met, annoyed and yet amused a little.

Hannah spoke first.

"Evidently the rest of you aren't any more fascinated than I am! I didn't count on going off all by myself to see a stranger! But we asked for a prescription, and we all promised to follow it, so here goes. Doctors always give disagreeable medicine!"

"Mine isn't unpleasant, except that I have to do it alone," said Alice. "Which way does Madam Kittredge live, Catherine?"

"Two doors beyond Dot's, where we were yesterday. You can't miss it. I wish I could go with you, but let's hurry up and get back. Do you know the way to yours, Frieda?"

"It tells the way plainly enough," said Frieda, grumbling a little. "But I think I wish I were a scientific Christian, like the ones you told me about!"

The others laughed sympathetically.

"Too late to save yourself now," said Hannah. "Go ahead and get it over, and then we'll get even with Dr. Helen some way for playing us such a mischievous trick. Good-by. I have to go down town for mine."

Dr. Helen from her window watched them separate, and smiled. A few minutes later Bert appeared, looking for some one to amuse him.

The doctor told him of the malady that had seized her maidens, and of their quest for healing.

"It's an epidemic," said Bert solemnly. "I've got it bad, and I saw Arch an hour ago, and he was so low he couldn't even smile. Said he was going to cut out paper dolls or string buttons, if this kept up. Can't you prescribe for us, Doctor?"

"Why, yes. Get Archie and bring him up here to supper this evening. Tell him he needn't smile. Perhaps my ladies-errant may have stories to tell that will ease your pain a little!"

Bert joyfully undertook to bring Archie, and set off at once while Dr. Helen gave Inga instructions for an especially festive supper, and with her own hands prepared a frozen dessert.

The four girls, who had barely slept apart in the week since Alice's arrival, were now walking along widely separate paths, each one feeling oddly alone, and yet not wholly disliking the sensation. Catherine, well-used to her mother's ways and beliefs, smiled to herself as she went off to tell stories and play cat's cradle with the washerwoman's little girl, who had a "spine" and had to be "kep' quiet with high epidemics somethin' fierce."

"It's just like Mother," she thought. "She knew I was peevish and really needed to be alone. Just as she used to send me to my 'boudoir' to pout by myself when I was little. The hours with the girls seem so precious that I can't bear to lose one, but I suppose I did need to be alone. You know, Mr. Squirrel, or Mr. Oakkitten, as Frieda would call you, what George Herbert said:

'By all means use sometimes to be alone. Salute thyself: see what thy soul doth wear.'

"You needn't scamper away up the tree so fast. I'm not going to stay round here long enough to interfere with your looking over your spiritual wardrobe. I wonder if your soul wears soft gray fur?" And the story-teller walked quickly on through the woods, chanting to herself: "Old world, how beautiful thou art!" and planning for an unusually effective dénouement for the tale of the Three Little Pigs.

Hannah, traversing the blistering length of Main Street, had arrived at the gloomy brick building labelled Hotel, and had inquired for Mrs. Tracy of whom her prescription told her this much: "Travelling man's wife, convalescent after long severe illness."

Mrs. Tracy would receive her in her room, and Hannah followed the proprietor, who was also bell-boy and head waiter, up the shabby stairs, feeling decidedly foolish, but determined not to give up.

Once inside the room, she forgot her own feelings. It was a most doleful place, with ugly walls, cheap stained furniture and huge figured curtains; but she was met by a sweet-faced young woman in a soft blue négligée.

"Dr. Helen telephoned me that you were coming," she said, taking Hannah's hand and looking into her eyes with a bright look that made Hannah feel interested at once.

"Will you take the place of honor?" She indicated a stiff little settee, upholstered in magenta cotton velvet.

"It must be what the _Courier_ advertisement meant, when it spoke of furniture, 'warranted upholstered,'" said Hannah seating herself, and smiling her most merry smile at her attractive little hostess.

The thin face almost dimpled with pleasure.

"So you read the _Courier_, too! Mr. Tracy bought back numbers of it to amuse me, and I've collected the most delightful clippings. You see, I'm alone so much. The nurse wasn't very entertaining, and my husband has to be away all the week, and I have to have some one to laugh with, or at least, something to laugh at!"

"What fun!" said Hannah. "Do show me your clippings."

"I was just pasting in a birth notice when you came," said Mrs. Tracy, lifting a small scrap-book from a table. "It's about as good as anything. 'Mr. and Mrs. Ezra Kling are the proud parents of a fine baby girl. Present indications are that the lovely lump intends to stay.'"

"O!" Hannah shrieked and leaned forward to look. Mrs. Tracy handed her the book.

"That's why I cut them out and paste them. No one would believe them, otherwise. Here is a gem of music criticism: 'As he stepped to the edge of the platform, the word Artist came to every lip. His natural pathos mingled with his baritone in such a manner that it was impossible to tell where one left off and the other began. And in his dramatic numbers, the writhings of his face showed the convulsive agonies of a soul in pain.'"

"One of my friends told me about a singer coming to a little village, and they described her appearance and her dress, and wound up the paragraph by saying: 'The soloist wore white shoes. No other stage decorations were necessary.'"

"Delightful--unless it was deliberate wit! As it was in a Kansas paper, which spoke of some one's 'blowing large chunks of melody out of a flute.' But the charm of these Winsted gems is the entire unconsciousness of the writer. For instance, here: 'The élite lingerie of Winsted invited their gentleman friends to a leap-year ball!'"

"O, see here!" cried Hannah, turning the pages joyfully. "'The hall was decorated with syringe blossoms!'"

"Only a misprint, and I saw in a Chicago paper the other day that one of the fashionable ladies wore a gown with a gold-colored y-o-l-k. This is partly a misprint, too, 'easy _hairs_ were scattered about with a lavish hand.' But I think it would take a hand that was powerful as well as lavish, to scatter easy chairs very generally! That was the same party where the hostess and her daughters 'dispensed with the refreshments in the dining-room!' But I am not going to keep you laughing over the _Courier_ all the afternoon," and Mrs. Tracy tried to take the book away from Hannah.

"Just one more," she begged. "Listen! 'Mrs. Gray's speech was replete with wit, wisdom and winsome ways.' O dear, Mrs. Tracy! I never saw anything so funny as this book in all my life!"

"The trouble with it is that it gets one started on a certain line, and it is very hard to get away from it."

"Like telling funny names you have heard," suggested Hannah. "Alice and Catherine and Frieda and I got to telling those last night, and we laughed so long and so hard that Dr. Helen came up and put us to bed!"

"Did you have any funnier than Pearl Button?"

"Not really?" protested Hannah. "Alice swore she knew one girl called Dusk Delight Dinwiddie, because she was born at twilight and they thought she was delightful. That was what we were laughing over when Dr. Helen came in, and she stopped long enough to tell us of a college acquaintance of hers named Revelation Rasmussen, who married Will Kelly, and an Ella G. Gray whom they nick-named 'Country Churchyard'!"

"What jolly times you girls must be having," said Mrs. Tracy. "You see, I know all about you. Dr. Helen--I began calling her Dr. Smith, but I couldn't keep it up--has told me all sorts of interesting stories, and those about you four are the most entertaining. I listen to all your doings as though you were characters in a serial story. You don't mind, I hope?"

"Mind? Of course not. We aren't story-book girls at all, though, but very flesh-and-bloody! Why didn't Dr. Helen tell us about you before, and let us come to see you?"

"It has only been a little while that I have felt like seeing people, and when she suggested sending her daughter, I told her not to, for I didn't want your fun interrupted. And I remember when I was your age, I dreaded calling on sick people. I always felt as though I ought to carry them tracts or--"

"Wine jelly," finished Hannah. "Yes, that's the way I felt a little, to-day. I was afraid I'd not be able to think of anything to say, and I planned to offer to read to you."

"That was very good of you, but I've read and been read to so much that I'm glad of other occupations. The nurse exhausted the library's resources. Then I took up picture puzzles. Mr. Tracy brings them out to me every week, but we both get cross about them because they interest us so that we spend half his precious day over them! Just now I am trying to teach myself to knit, out of a book, and I'm in a dreadful tangle. I think the chamber-maid knows how, and I mean to ask her."

"O, let me bring Frieda in to show you. She knows how to do all such things, and would dearly love to. And you ought to meet all your story characters and see if we are like what you imagined. I must go now, for Dr. Helen expressly said that I wasn't to stay long, and I know you are tired."

"I'll soon be rested, and it has been such fun to have you. Wait! Let me give you one of my roses!"

Hannah took the rose, and then put out her hand for good-by. There was something so sweet and winning about the white little face, where tired lines were showing in spite of the smile, that Hannah impulsively bent over and kissed it; and then, promising to come next day with Frieda, she flew down the corridor and out into the street, entirely recovered from her ennui of the morning.

Frieda, meanwhile, was following minute directions which led her at last to a tiny cottage by the riverside. She went up the walk and rapped on the door. No one answered. A second attempt was as unsuccessful, and Frieda turned away, half ready to give up this strange errand which she did not quite fancy. Dr. Helen had asked her to go to this house and buy flowers! It did not look like a florist's. There was a garden behind the house, though. She decided to go back there before giving up. Dr. Helen usually was wise.

Behind the house was a neat, neat garden, with vegetables and berry bushes and gorgeous flowers of every kind. There were little trees whitewashed up to the branches, and whitewashed stones marked the corners of the paths. Frieda stood looking about with pleasure, when she saw coming down the path a little old lady with a black knitted shawl over her head, and a little old man in carpet slippers, with a big pipe in his mouth. They met her shyly and she put her errand in her embarrassed English. The old lady shook her head and looked hopefully at the old man. He shook his and grunted. Frieda tried once more. She frequently had difficulty in making herself understood. This time she used gestures, and made such an earnest effort to be clear that the old people began to look worried. The old lady shook her head again and then, turning to her husband, asked him something in German. Then there was excitement! Frieda plunged into German with them, and the others, delighted to find she knew their language, talked fast and faster.

When she told them she was newly come from their beloved country, their eyes filled with tears and they asked question after question. Leading her to an arbor under the whitewashed trees, they made her sit down. The little old lady hurried into the house and brought out _Kuchen_ and beer. Frieda was blissful. They spoke good German, and had visited Berlin. They were full of respect when they learned that Frieda's father was a Herr Professor, for they themselves had been simple tradespeople. In answer to her questions, they told her how their children had come to America, had prospered, and had sent for the old parents. With sad voices they explained their entire inability to adjust themselves to the new country and the new ways. The language they had not even attempted to acquire. At last, their sons had built this little cottage for them, and, with a grandchild, who spoke both languages, to act as interpreter, they lived peacefully and quietly on.

"But we miss the old country sometimes," said the grandfather. "Our neighbors and the pleasant evenings and the bands."

"Don't you know the other Germans here?" asked Frieda. "Dr. Harlow tells me there are many."

"They are not from our part of Germany," said the little grandmother gently. "And they are Methodists, while we are Lutherans."

"But our sons come often to see us, and we have the garden and each other," said the grandfather cheerfully. "And sometimes we get hold of a German book or paper."

"O!" cried Frieda delightedly. "There will be many German books for you soon," and she told them eagerly about the library and the list of books Algernon had already ordered at her suggestion. They listened with intelligent interest, and exchanged looks of pleasure at the thought of such a storehouse to draw on in the long winter evenings, "when the garden takes its nap," as the little Frau said lovingly.

The sun was perceptibly lower when Frieda rose to go. Then she remembered Dr. Helen's errand. The faces of her host and hostess shone at the name. "Heavenly kind! Yes! She had done much for them. They would send her flowers gladly, but sell them to her? Never!"

With big shears they cut great stalks of everything the garden contained, and, piling Frieda's arms with blossoms, while she uttered protests and exclamations of delight, they escorted her to the gate. There, in spite of her boasted emancipation from childhood, she dropped a courtesy and left them, crying "_Ade!_" as long as they could see her.

At the supper table at Three Gables, Dr. Helen, with Bert on one side, and Archie on the other, called on each girl in turn for her story of the afternoon.

Alice's turn came last.

"It was such a beautiful prescription!" she said. "I went to see Madam Kittredge. Her daughter took me up to her big room furnished with old mahogany heirlooms that made me feel as though I were in New England. And there in an arm-chair sat the most beautiful white-haired woman I ever saw. She is quite imposing and grand, but her smile saves her from being awesome. I loved her at first sight, and was not shy about staying alone with her. You would hardly know she is blind, would you? And she is perfectly delightful. She asked about Mrs. Langdon, and told me some droll stories of her odd ways, even when she was a young girl. She and Mrs. Langdon and another girl were together a great deal when they were young, and now they live within a radius of a hundred miles, but she says they never travel, so it might almost as well be a thousand. One is blind and one is lame and the third is deaf! She laughed about it as though it were not sad at all. The deaf one has been quite ill recently, and Madam Kittredge is making the prettiest present for her. She says Mrs. Langdon writes regular letters to them both, but Madam Kittredge can reply only by dictation, or by sending little gifts, and she takes the greatest pleasure in doing that. She showed me what she was getting ready for 'Matty,' as she calls the one who lives in Milwaukee. It seemed so queer to hear her speak of Mrs. Langdon as 'Sue'! If you should see her once,--" turning to Bert, who sat beside her,--"you would appreciate it. She is almost a fierce-looking old lady, and she says the most startlingly frank things if she chooses. I don't believe any ordinary person could help being a little afraid of Mrs. Langdon, but Madam Kittredge seems to think her a delicious joke. But I started to tell about the present. You see, this Matty is all alone in the world. She never married and she hasn't much money, and she just loves pretty things, especially pretty colors. And so Madam Kittredge is sending her a rainbow basket. It ought to have seemed pathetic to see her handling the colored things and hear her telling about the pleasure she was sure her friend would take in them, when she couldn't see them herself, but somehow it wasn't. She doesn't seem to think of herself at all, and so she doesn't make other people. She said she made excellent use of her sight while she had it, and can picture everything clearly now. The basket itself was beautiful, a big green sweet-grass scrap basket, with a great green bow. And inside were six parcels, each tied with a bow of ribbon, so that all the rainbow shades are there. The friend is to draw one each day for a week. Mrs. Kittredge undid them and let me look. She says she likes the feel of the soft paper and ribbon. First was a little red rose bush in a pot--"

"Is she going to send the thing that way? How can she?"

"I asked, myself, and she smiled and said she allowed herself some extravagances, and one was to carry out her little ideas like that without minding if they did cost rather more doing it her way. She said her friend would enjoy the rose ten times as much coming that way as she would if it were ordered from a Milwaukee florist, so she's sending it. I like her independent spirit!"

"It might take an independent fortune as well," remarked Dr. Harlow, "but Madam Kittredge is fortunate enough to have that, or its equivalent, and she uses a good proportion of it in conventional charities, so she is safe from criticism if she chooses to assist the express companies. Perhaps she's a stockholder in one, for all I know! What did she have for orange, Alice?"

"A box of tangerines, with those tiny, tiny ones like doll oranges; I forget what you call them. They looked so pretty in a nest of green. The yellow parcel was a little sunset picture, only a little colored photograph, she said, but with a charming glow. The basket itself was for the green stripe in the rainbow, and there was a lovely pale blue knitted scarf, which Madam Kittredge made herself. The indigo bothered her, but she sent her daughter searching everywhere till she found a beautiful Persian pattern ribbon with an indigo ground, and she made that up into sachets with violet scent."

"That finished off two at once," said Hannah. "If I were Matty, I'd object. I thought you said there were six parcels."

"One of the sachets was done up with dark blue ribbon and the other with violet. But there was still another parcel, a white one, the prettiest of all, for it held skeins of all the soft shades of embroidery silk you ever saw in a white silk case. I don't see how any one could help liking to look at them. Madam Kittredge said that what suggested the whole idea to her was Matty's writing about how she enjoyed having colored silk samples to look at, as she lay in bed. She does embroidery, too, when she is well enough, so she will like the silks to use, by and by."

"What a charming basket!" Catherine drew a deep breath of pleasure. "I should love to see it."

"She said she shouldn't send it for a day or two, so if you go in to-morrow, you can. I'm sure she'd love to have you. She wanted one more thing to make it complete. You see, without intending it, she had put in something for every sense but hearing. There was color and fragrance and touch and taste, and she said she wanted to get some music into it, and she couldn't think how. Of course her friend is deaf, but that didn't matter. She said her mind's ear was as true as ever, and she wanted her to _hear_ something out of that basket. And wasn't it lovely! I happened to think of something which she said would do exactly!"

"What?" "Tell us!" "Think of having a hand in such a pretty present!" The other girls leaned forward eagerly, and the boys looked almost as interested. Alice went on a trifle shyly, as she came to tell her own part.

"I suggested some little poem full of color words, and that delighted her and she thought a minute. I didn't know any, and I wished Catherine were there with her headful! But Madam Kittredge has a headful of her own. She had me get out two or three books and look up some that she thought might do, but they didn't just suit her; and then she had me open her clipping book and hunt for one called _Indian Summer_. It was just the thing and I loved it the minute I read it. She let me copy it for her, and make an illuminated initial with her water-colors. She seems to have everything imaginable in that big roomy desk of hers. I was glad of the chance to copy it, for I could learn it and I want to keep it always."

"Please recite it for us," said Dr. Helen, and, the others all joining in her request with words or looks, Alice repeated the beautiful lines lovingly:

"Faint blue the distant hills before, Yellow the harvest lands behind; Wayfarers we upon the path The thistledown goes out to find.

"On naked branch and empty nest, The woodland's blended gold and red, Dim glory lies which autumn shares With faces of the newly dead.

"Tender this moment of the year To eyes that seek and feet that roam; It is the lifting of the latch, A footstep on the flags of home.

"Now may the peace of withered grass And goldenrod abide with you; Abide with me--for what is death? Pall of a leaf against the blue."

Feeling that a benediction had been pronounced, they all adjourned to the porch, Dr. Harlow sitting down by Archie and chatting with him in a friendly way about his own Andover experiences years before, while the girls talked quietly with Bert, who had dropped his nonsense for the time. Dr. Helen was sitting a little apart, but by and by Hannah slipped over to her chair.

"I'm not so very clever about things," she said, "and I always like to have them explained. So won't you tell me just what you meant by this afternoon? You know we all promised to use the prescription again, if we needed it."

"Yes," said Dr. Helen encouragingly, and waited.

"Well. You might have meant several things. You might just have meant that we needed a change. We had been sitting about and wishing it was cooler and talking nonsense and gossip--almost!--and we hadn't been doing anything useful. Perhaps you wanted us to find out that we'd be happier if we did something for some one else, even if it looked disagreeable at first. I've always had that preached to me!"

"I didn't preach!" objected Dr. Helen.

"No, you prescribed. That's your way of preaching, though. You set us to preaching to ourselves, and it's much more objectionable. I can shut my ears when other people preach to me, but I can't get away from myself! But I was wondering if, perhaps, besides all that, you didn't want us to see how cheerful and happy some people manage to be without much to make them so. Even that little girl with the spine plays she is an enchanted princess, Catherine says, and has lovely times, winding balls of yarn and cutting paper chains. She has to get a certain number of them done before the enchantment will be broken. I know who suggested that idea to her," said Hannah, looking searchingly into the doctor's face. "I've found out a lot of things this afternoon about you, professionally. Perhaps _that_ was what you were after! Just advertising!"

Dr. Helen's laugh at this brought Dr. Harlow over to her; and Archie joined the other group.

"Go on, Hannah," said Dr. Helen, seeing Hannah hesitate a little. "Dr. Harlow will be interested in your analysis of my prescription."

"I wasn't going to analyse it any more, but I was just thinking that whichever you meant, they were really all of them the same thing Miss Lyndesay meant when she talked to us about being _laetus_, I mean, _laetae sorte mea_, I mean _nostra_!"

Dr. Harlow chuckled softly, but Dr. Helen put a kiss on the sweet mouth with the earnest curve.

"When you finish school, Hannah," suggested Dr. Harlow, "you can come out here and help us in the office, making up prescriptions for spiritually afflicted folk--we've all got to take up that line nowadays, you know--and handling the Latin end of the business. Helen never was strong on Latin. She translated '_E pluribus unum_' as 'One too many' when she was young!"

The boys got up to leave, and the doctor's raillery was checked, but Hannah pondered over it as she went up to bed. About midnight she heard him closing the doors for the night, and, slipping her bright kimono over her night-dress, she stole out into the hall and half-way down stairs.

"Dr. Harlow," she called softly, and the doctor looked up to see her leaning over the banister, her curly brown braids falling forward.

"I know now why you laughed," she said. "It should be _sortibus_. _Laetae sortibus nostra!_ O, dear no, _nostris_. I guess I'd rather do the surgery, and let you attend to the Latin!"

"Perhaps it would be wise!" said Dr. Harlow.