CHAPTER III
THE DECISION OF MISS KEITH
It was while mistress and dog were thus absorbed that Dr. Russell, gun on shoulder, and grouse dangling from his fingers, came up the side road on the south that separated house and garden plot from the barn and outbuildings, that stood close to the lane edge, facing it, like a row of precise soldiers drawn up to give salute.
He expected that at his first footfall on the side porch his coming would be heralded by short, percussive barks,—Tatters’ greeting to his friends. He knocked twice, then tried the yielding door-knob, and entered the kitchen, where various saucepans, boiling over madly and deluging the polished stove with an impromptu pottage, told of some sort of domestic lapse. Crossing the hallway, guided by a light streak toward the first open door, he entered the sitting room at the moment that Miss Keith had raised her wet eyes from Tatters’ head, and was alternately rubbing them with her handkerchief, held in one hand, and looking at her answer to the disturbing letter, held in the other.
“Why, what is the matter, Miss Keith,—bad news or a love letter?” the doctor asked with the easy cheerfulness that showed how little real anxiety lay beneath the question. “The carrier said that you wished to see me to-day, and so I’ve come down, but I’d no idea that it was about a tearful matter, and one in which Tatters was too much involved to ‘watch out’ as usual.”
Taken thus unawares, an aggressive expression crossed Miss Keith’s face for an instant, but immediately disappeared under the influence of the doctor’s smile, and, quickly recovering, she answered, as she gave her hands into his hearty grasp: “It is both bad news and a letter. To-day is my fiftieth birthday,—you see I do not believe in belying the Lord’s work and concealing one’s age as some do,—and I’ve had a letter that I want man’s counsel upon.” Then, as a sound of liquid hissing on a hot stove and the smell of burning food came from the hallway, she remembered the time of day, the dinner in peril, and her duties as housekeeper, at the same moment, and mumbling a hasty apology, fled to the kitchen, followed by the doctor, who, after making the grouse serve as a birthday offering, wisely retired to the sitting room until dinner should be ready.
Once there, he made a few rapid but direct observations, beginning with the First Cause on the mantel-shelf.
Then, as he saw the two letters on the desk, one envelope hastily torn open and bearing the signs of much handling, the other carefully sealed and lying face downward, he chuckled to himself. “Woman all through, Miss Keith, in spite of everything. Ten to one she has made up her mind and answered her letter while she was waiting for me to come and advise with her about it. At the same time, when the dinner is off her mind, she will tell me the whole story, and discuss it from the very beginning, for the mere pleasure of it; but no matter what I may say, she will post the letter already written.” Then, going over to the bookcase that topped the desk, he unlocked the diamond-paned door, and pulling out a book at random, which proved to be a dingy copy of Hogg’s “Shepherd’s Calendar,” he resigned himself to the inevitable drowsiness born of the volume and his long walk, and stretching himself on the wide haircloth sofa, was soon taking the “forty winks” that should sharpen his wits for the coming interview.