A pause followed. At length said the rector,
"You are so good a fellow, Faber, I wish you were better. When will you come and dine with me?"
"Soon, I hope," answered the surgeon, "but I am too busy at present. For all her sweet ways and looks, the spring is not friendly to man, and my work is to wage war with nature."
A second pause followed. The rector would gladly have said something, but nothing would come.
"By the by," he said at length, "I thought I saw you pass the gate—let me see—on Monday: why did you not look in?"
"I hadn't a moment's time. I was sent for to a patient in the village."
"Yes, I know; I heard of that. I wish you would give me your impression of the lady. She is a stranger here.—John, that gate is swinging across the road. Get down and shut it.—Who and what is she?"
"That I should be glad to learn from you. All I know is that she is a lady. There can not be two opinions as to that."
"They tell me she is a beauty," said the parson.
The doctor nodded his head emphatically.