Dr. Breen's Practice

s ever so much better generally, but that she seemed to have more of that tickling in her throat. Each of them advised her for good, and suggested this specific and t

pathists insinuated a fine distrust of a physician of their own sex. "Oh, it's nothing serious," Mrs. Maynard

es and picked the peas, pulled the sweet-corn and the tomatoes, kindled the kitchen fire, harnessed the old splayfooted mare,-safe for ladies and children, and intolerable for all others, which formed the entire stud of the Jocelyn House stables,-dug the clams, rowed and sailed the boat, looked after the bath-houses, and came in contact with the guests at so many points that he was on easy terms with them all. This ease tended to an intimacy w

w. What sort of day do you thi

ea and sky. "First-rate. Fog's most burnt away now. You don't

who said, "That's so. The air's just s

ever try," he asked, stretching his hand as far up the piazza-post as he could, and swinging into a

th interest, but, shaking

d like to have

he gasped, when she

w England consumption-well, not the old New England kind-since these woods growed up. He used to take whiskey with white-pine chips in it; and I can remember hearin 'em say that it done him more good than all the doctor's stuff. He'd been out to Demarary, and everywheres, and he come home in the la

ould like to try it. I know it would be soothing; and I've always heard that whiskey was the very thing to build you up. But

in my room. Not but what I believe in going by your doctor's directions, it don't m

cried Mr

ou just tell her about the whiskey with the white-pine chips in it. Maybe

r. Barlow. Grace is everything for the balsamic properties of the air, down here. That's what she sa

iving, as if the repetition of the words p

ould once get my digestion all right, then the cough would stop of itself. The doctor said-Dr. Nixon, that is-that it was more than half the digestion any way. But just as soon as I eat anything-o

efence of the kitchen, "I think you had n't ought

do me much good," Mrs. Maynard

st, and slouched in-doors; but he came out

u know, it did

im?" asked M

th the white-pi

re

brot

nchial. I think it might do me go

e; but as Mrs. Maynard kept her eyes persistently turned from him, and was evidently tired, he had no

ave taken some more cold. But that shows that it does n't get worse of itself, and I think w

was the worst thing about it,

from the sand? I

beginning to pull over some sewing which s

ld say more, but she did not speak. "Oh-well!" she was force

etting the thread she wanted, "w

would n't be quite the thing. But did n't I tell you last night how he lived with us in Europe? And when we were all coming over on the steamer together Mr. Libby and Mr

looked sternly at the invalid; but broke into a laugh, on which Mrs. Maynard w

he did, nicely. I was n't exhausted a bit; and how I took more cold I can't understand; I was wrapped up warmly. I think

s," sai

rs. Maynard, with a sly look at the other. "He's a

than I have." Mrs. Maynard sighed deeply in assent. "But it does n't seem to have taught you that if you will provoke people to talk of you, you must expect criticism. One after another you've told nearly every woman in the h

words by her consciousness of the point she was about to make, "you

y it?" demanded

ing a

could say anything Mrs. Maynard went on: "There isn't one of them that does n't think you're much mo

ruth which lurked in the exaggeration of these words, and it unnerved her, as the fact that she was doing what the vast majority of women considered unwomanly

d!" cried Mrs. Maynard, glad

s to take the ground that so long as you wear your husband's name you

rs. Maynard ruefu

e appearance of liking admiration, or

o," murmured

m what I have," continued Grace, "that I don't feel as if I had any r

for one while; I know that much," Mrs

ght not to regard it as emancipa

sent from the victim

go walking with Mr. Libby any more; and tha

you he was a friend of the family? He's quite as much Mr. Maynard's friend as he is mine. I'm sure," she added, "if I asked

ppearance to people here. I don't wis

nestly. "I won't, indeed. And that makes me t

ted me-What are y

calm; and he always has a man with him to help sail the boat, so there is n't the least danger." Grace looked at her in silent sorrow, and Mrs. Maynard went on with sympathetic seriousness: "Oh! there's one thing I want to ask you about, Grace: I don't like to have any conce

re you talking

with white-pin

her skirt, which she had gathered up apronwise to hold her work. When she rose from the complicated difficulty, in which Mrs. Maynard had amiably lent her aid, she confronted Mr. Libby, who was coming towards them from the cliff. She gave him a stiff nod, and attempted to mo

to free her; but in vain. She extended him the scissors with the stern passivity of a fate. "Cut it," she commanded, and Mr. Libby knelt before her

e half a minute, Mr. Libby," said Mrs. Maynard,

s she bent over her work. If he wished to speak to her, and was wavering as to the appropriate style of address for a hands

t you feel like a sail, thi

d Grace, with a conscience against sayin

ter," said Mr. Libby. "But i

er the cold abstraction of the gaze with which she seemed to look th

ection kindling in his gay eyes. "We had a good time. Mayna

an's, and she did not know whether to consider him very depraved or very innocent. In her question

hought I should find him, too. I came over yes

mradeship intended for her husband, it was not so. She could only look severely at him, and trust that he might conceive the intention which she could not express. She rebelled against the convention and against her

ing to Maynard because he was a topic of conversatio

nswered

humor, and he tells a story better than any

orry that you've asked Mrs. Maynard to take a sail with you. The sea air"-she reddened with th

oung man, "you mus

e to forbid he

he broke in. "I'll

r which he vanished, and he did not reappear til

Maynard," he said, breathing quickly. "Adams thinks we

d Mrs. Maynard, in petulant disappointme

om the bad weather." She picked up the shawls, and handed them to Mr. Libby, on whom her eyes blazed their contempt and wonder. It cost a great deal of persuasion and insistence now to mak

she did n't want me to go, this morning, and now she

ittle fresh, perhaps. I tho

m never seasick! That's

, y

seasick once, it would be

icious?" ask

way down the steps, in order to enjoy her astonishmen

her descent. "I suppose I don't understand her exactly. Perhaps she did n't like my not calling her Doctor. I did n't call her

ed. She is n't a docto

think it's a

ha

ing a d

l her you

t. But do

nt to be one," said M

she does it from a sense of du

anybody; though she don't know it," Mrs. Maynard added astutely

r. Perhaps she thought we were too

ried Mrs. Maynard, wit

ook old," retu

y-eight. How

-taker not to tell til

he color o

ro

her e

n't k

bby!" said Mrs. Maynard, putting

zza. Then she went to her mother's room. The elderly lady was keeping indoors, upon a theory that the dew was on, and that it was

er growing irritation in regard to her patient intensified b

id Mrs. Breen, with no

emanding, "Why?" as her mother expe

be in mischief then,

ently; "and it's my fault! I did it. I sent h

en, in her turn, with

couldn't help him lie out

he want

to make him understand that I did n't wish her to go, either; and he ran down to his boat, and came back with a story about

ing to be rough?"

, the sea's

River, and beginning practice there among those factory children, was the only thing that I ever entirely liked in

us, sick and poor? I couldn't turn my back on her, especially after always

ou ever liked her,

ht her a poor, flimsy little thing. But that ought

hing more on her side: "She's worse than she used to be,-sillier. I

ked people who, do the

any ordinary case. But a child would take better care of itself. I have to

which she had not expressed before. "And you're a goo

n her cheeks. "And if Louise had n't come, you know, mother, that I was anxious to have some older person with me when I wen

n't," Mrs. Br

alking." She added, after an interval, in which her mother rocked to and fro with a gentle motion that searched the joints of her chair, and brought out its most plaintive squeak in pathetic iteration, and watched Grace, as she sat looking seaward through the open window, "I think it's rather hard, mother, that you should be always talking as if I wished to take my calling mannishly. All that I intend is not to take it womanishly; but as for not being a woman about it, or about anything, that's simply impossible. A w

rs. Breen, who said, "I thi

s giddiness, I'm, a great deal more scandalous to them than she is simply because

u are m

in mine. Louise knows it, and she feels that she has a claim upon me in being my patient. And I 've no influence with her about her conduct because she understands perfectly well that they all consider me mu

humor of the predicament. "She

aid Grace, going out of the room. She returned in an hour, and ask

een all this tim

rlow has just brought her in. HE could find her. Sh

ed. When she reappeared with the bottle in her hand

" said

s. Breen, hazarding the pronoun, with a woman's confi

leep, she came down to the piazza, and stood looking out to sea. The ladies appeared one by one over the edge o

one after another. The last one added, "Barlow

h the ladies' remaining wraps, and confirmed their report in per

wn," said one of the ladies, f

dvertiser, Mrs. Alg

today's till this afternoon. It shows what a

Advertiser the same morning. I always look at the Weather Report

yn's. You can only

s for Jocelyn's, "you can most al

port. It's wonderful how it comes true. I don't think there 's anyt

iss the oysters

what we did the first thing-? We drove to Fulton Market, and had one of those Fulton Market broils! My husband said we should h

titudes of exhaustion on the benching of the piazza. "Well, I can most al'ays tell about Jocelyn's as

er. "I should think it had

"that the wind 'll change at n

here," said Mrs. Scott, "I should thin

med a little fat lady, as if here at last were an

. Merritt," said Mrs. Alger, with th

n her motion, the other ladies looked at Barlow. Doubtless he felt that his social acceptability had ceased with his imme

er of the house, Mrs. Alger turned her head' aside, and glanced downward with

deferential glance at Grace, "that the sun

elf appealed to, and Mrs. Merritt said,

Mrs. Merritt and said, "I don't think Mrs. Maynard

es they might have liked to take Mrs. Maynard to pieces; but no one cares to make unkind remarks before a whole com

nned," said Mrs. Alger. "Their blue eyes look so very

fighting-clip as Mr. Libb

or summer," return

nly must," admi

fighting-clip. One does n't know what to do with o

said Mrs. Alger. The others looked at her hair

" said Mrs. Frost, in

ane, hanging loose after the bath, into her hand. Mrs. Frost put her arm round the girl

nto an abstraction, and left the others with the feeling that she was a person of advanced ideas, but that, while rejecting historical Christianity, she believed in a God of Love. This Deity was said, upon closer analysis, to have proved to be a God of Sentiment, and Miss Gleason was herself a hero-worshiper, or, more strictly speaking, a heroine-worshiper. At present Dr. Breen was her cult, and she was apt to lie in wait for her idol, to beam upon it with her suggestive eyes, and evidently to expect it to say or do something