Happily Miss Lorraine was at home. She was seated at her desk in the little drawing room which opened at one side of the front door. A great talker, Miss Lorraine was not less great as a correspondent. When not paying calls or entertaining visitors, she was generally to be found writing letters.
"Aunt Lucy, here is a gentleman I met at the gate. He has had an accident; he fell from his bicycle. Do come and see what you can do for him."
"My dear! An accident?" cried Miss Lorraine, springing up with alacrity.
She came bustling into the hall, a comely little woman, whose age it would have been difficult to determine, for her black hair was scarce touched with grey, her eyes bright; she moved and spoke briskly, and was always dressed in a dainty, becoming style. Of great energy, she loved to be of use in any way, and, as Aldyth knew well, was delighted by this unexpected call to render surgical aid.
Aldyth had not given a thought to the individuality of the stranger, but Miss Lorraine recognized the gentleman who had been pointed out to her that morning as the new master at the Woodham Grammar School. She welcomed him heartily, took him in hand at once in her quick, energetic fashion, and had soon sponged the wound and dressed it, not unskilfully, with lint and plaster.
"Now, Mr. Glynne, you must stay and take tea with me and Aldyth. Yes, indeed you must rest after such a shock, and the quieter you keep, the sooner the wound will heal."
"You are very kind," said John Glynne, feeling the attraction of the bright little home in which he found himself, and inclined to accept the invitation; "but you have the advantage of me, since you know my name, whilst I have yet to learn to whom I am indebted for such kind services."
"Oh, no one can be long a stranger at Woodham," said Miss Lorraine; "we have a curious faculty—have we not, Aldyth?—of finding out the history of everybody, and if you had been here more than one day, Mr. Glynne, you would have learned that I am Miss Lorraine, and this is my niece Aldyth. I am pretty well-known, having lived at Woodham all my life. And there are few persons in the neighbourhood who have not heard of my father, Dr. Lorraine, who practised as a physician here for many years. People would come miles to consult him."
"And did he leave no son to succeed to his practice?" asked Mr. Glynne.
"No," said Miss Lorraine, a shadow falling on her face; "I had but one brother, Aldyth's father, and he chose the army as his profession. Charlie Bland was my father's partner, and he succeeded him; but he died, poor fellow, a few years later. His widow and family live in that large house with bow-windows at the top of the High Street."