"Oh, let me go and see Dr. Elizabeth on Monday!" Ann cried eagerly. "Will you go with me, Violet?"
"Yes," assented Violet; "she lives a good way from here, does she not?"
"A good way—about a mile. We shall not be able to go till late in the afternoon, after school hours; but we shall be more likely to find her at home then than earlier in the day. We will tell her about Lottie Medland, and she will know if anything can be done to help her."
After that the conversation passed into another channel. Seeing his daughter was very troubled about the Medland family, Dr. Reed sought to distract her thoughts by talking to Violet of her relatives, and soon Ann was laughing at an account of some of the mischievous pranks the twins were in the habit of playing on their much enduring sisters and Barbara.
"You know they don't mean to be naughty, but they're high-spirited like all boys," explained Violet, who, now she was separated from her little brothers, thought of them very tenderly indeed; "it really used to be very funny to hear them teasing Barbara, and she's very fond of them both, though she pretends she's not. Billy used to mimic her, and it was impossible not to laugh, and then she would run after him and chase him out of the kitchen, and Ruth would have to go down and make peace."
"So Ruth is the peacemaker?" Dr. Reed questioned, with a smile.
"Yes," assented Violet. She always talked unreservedly to the doctor now, and he considered her a very bright, frank girl, as indeed she was with people she trusted, and she had learnt to trust Dr. and Mrs. Reed, and Ann. "I don't know what they would have done at home if you had said you wouldn't take me instead of Ruth," she proceeded candidly; "mother said in her last letter that Ruth is more than ever her right hand in the house."
"How does she get on with her drawing?" asked the doctor.
"Oh, capitally! She tells me she puts all her spare time to it; she means to be a great artist some day, I wonder if she will."
"Time will show," Mrs. Reed said, smiling, "I hope so. If she really has a talent for drawing and painting and works hard, no doubt she will get on. She is evidently ambitious."