"Has the young man shown any interest in Miss Callender since the engagement ceased?"
"He has called here several times during her sickness to inquire, and he sent a note this morning asking to see her. She has declined to see him, while expressing a great esteem for him."
"That's bad. You do not regard him as an objectionable person?"
"Oh, no; quite the contrary."
"It is my opinion that Miss Callender's recovery may depend on the renewal of that engagement. If that is out of the question—and it is a delicate matter to deal with—especially as the obstacle is in her own feelings, she must have travel. She ought to have change of scene, and she ought to meet people. Take her South, or North, or East, or West—to Europe or anywhere else, so as to be rid of local associations, and to see as many new things and people as possible. Good-morning, Mrs. Callender."
Having said this the old doctor mounted the basement stairs too nimbly for Mrs. Callender to keep up with him. When she reached the top he had already closed the front door and a moment later the wheels of his barouche were rattling violently over the irregular pavement that lay between the Callender house and Third Avenue.
To take Phillida away—that was the hard problem the doctor had given to Mrs. Callender. For with the love affair the mother might not meddle with any prospect of success. But the formidable barrier to a journey was the expense.
"Where would you like to go, Phillida?" said her mother.
"To Siam. I'd like to see the things and the people I saw when I was a child, when papa was with us and when it was easy to believe that everything that happened was for the best. It would be about as easy for us to go to Siam as anywhere else, for we haven't the money to spare to go anywhere. I sit and dream of the old house, and the yellow people, and the pleasure of being a child, and the comfort of believing. I am tired to death of this great, thinking, pushing, western world, with its restlessness and its unbelief. If I were in the East I could believe and hope, and not worry about what Philip calls 'the immensities.'"