"My idea is to train him to help me in the dispensary; Mark Fletcher will soon be leaving me. Then I can give him lessons myself, and, if he really is clever, get Mr. Hewson to teach him, and so as time passes, we shall see what he really is fit for, and how we like him. My dear, I know you consent only for my sake, but I hope it may prove an interest for you too, and brighten your life a bit. It seems to me that he is a boy one would get fond of easily."
Mrs. Wentworth said nothing. She thought that plans for the future mattered more to the doctor than to her.
Intent on his idea, Dr. Wentworth went to see Betty Giles the next day. He found the old woman sitting in the sun at her front door, knitting a stocking, and looking complacently at her crop of young annuals.
"Well, Betty, how goes the world with you?" he said.
"It goes," Betty said cheerily; "that's just it, doctor. It goes, and it goes, and soon 'twill be gone, or I shall, which comes to the same thing as far as I'm concerned."
"It is well for those who can, say that cheerfully, Betty."
"Well, now, I do feel cheerful, and I just hope I'm not like Ignorance in the 'Pilgrim.' Fred read me that book, and surely, next to the Bible, it comes home to one. But I don't really think I'm like he, though I'm ignorant enough. Not ignorant of my dear Saviour, though. I feel Him keeping me, somehow."
"Ah, old friend, many a learned man might envy you. I came to talk to you about Fred. Where is he?"
"Playing cricket on the green. Schoolmaster tells him he's getting too old for school, and that he won't learn much by staying on. I sometimes wish we could find his people. He's growing up—poor Fred!"
"That is just what I came to talk about, Betty. Dale spoke to me about him. He thinks him very clever."