THE MISSING WATCH
Whether the general rule of implicit obedience to parental injunction admitted of no exceptions, was a problem which Irene readily solved; and on Saturday, as soon as her father and cousin had started to the plantation (twenty-five miles distant), she put on her hat, and walked to town. Wholly absorbed in philanthropic schemes, she hurried along the sidewalk, ran up a flight of steps, and knocked at a door, on which was written in large gilt letters "Dr. Arnold."
"Ah, Beauty! come in. Sit down, and tell me what brought you to town so early."
He was probably a man of fifty; gruff in appearance, and unmistakably a bachelor. His thick hair was grizzled, so was the heavy beard; and the shaggy grey eyebrows slowly unbent, as he took his visitor's little hands and looked kindly down into her grave face. From her infancy he had petted and fondled her and she stood as little in awe of him as of Paragon.
"Doctor, are you busy this morning?"
"I am never too busy to attend to you, little one. What is it?"
"Of course you know that Mrs. Aubrey is almost blind."
"Of course I do, having been her physician."
"Those cataracts can be removed, however."
"Perhaps they can, and perhaps they can't."