There was a heavy step upon the porch, and Persis was spared further harrowing details. "Oh, it's the doctor," Diantha cried, with a sigh for her interrupted confidences. "Is anybody sick?"
"Nobody here," said Persis, and she echoed Diantha's sigh. The doctor's appearance suggested that she might be needed to act as nurse in some household too poor to pay for professional care. For a dozen years the old doctor had called on her freely for such gratuitous service, and his successor had promptly fallen into a similar practise. At this juncture Persis felt a most unchristian reluctance to act the part of ministering angel in any sick room. Nothing adds to a woman's apparent age so rapidly as working by day and caring for the sick at night. Persis had seen herself, on more than one occasion, take on ten years in a week of such double duty. And just now she wanted to appear youthful and pretty, not haggard and worn. She greeted the doctor less cordially than was her wont for the reason that in her heart she knew she must do whatever he asked.
Doctor Ballard shook hands with Persis, nodded casually to Diantha and waited openly for that ingenuous young person to take her departure. As the door closed behind her, he dropped into the armchair she had vacated, crossed his legs and sighed.
"Miss Persis, I'm up a tree. I want some advice."
"You're welcome to all I've got." Persis, regretting the reserve of her greeting, beamed upon him affectionately.
"Did you ever know a woman to die just because she'd decided that was the proper caper?"
"Trouble?" Persis questioned laconically.
"Lord, no! Everything comfortable. Husband who worships her. As far as I can diagnose the case, it's a sort of homesickness for the pearly gates."
"Kind of as if she'd got disgusted with this world," suggested Persis, with one of her flashes of intuition, "and wanted to get some place where things would be more congenial."
"You've hit it to a T. Now, what I want to know is this, can people keep up that kind of nonsense till they die of it? I've got a patient right now who's lost thirty pounds by it. She won't eat. She won't make an effort. She sits around smiling like an angel off on sick-leave, and the same as tells me I can't do anything for her because she's wanted over the river. Husband's about crazy."