The slow clatter of the lawnmower grew louder, and finally ceased beneath the window. The doctor turned, a bottle in each hand. The open sash was filled by a straw hat which formed the frame for a broad, smiling countenance.
"Want any help?" the visitor inquired, genially.
"No, thank you," answered the doctor, adding, pointedly: "You have other work to do, you know."
"Oh, I ain't worryin' about that," responded his man-servant, reassuringly. "Old Doc. Williams uster say he'd make kindlin' wood o' me, when I didn't hustle round, but it never fizzed on me." He hung himself over the window-sill with a sigh of satisfaction, and gazed admiringly at his employer.
A wire door, leading from the veranda to the main portion of the house, swung slowly open, and a woman, wearing a big, blue-checked apron, and carrying a long pewter spoon, looked out anxiously. "Davy!" she called in a loud whisper, "why don't you get on with your work?"
"I'm helpin' the doctor with his mixtures," he answered, in a tone of remonstrance.
The woman's tight mouth closed emphatically. "Well, hish!" she said, raising her spoon warningly. "Susan Winters is sittin' on her porch, an' she'll hear if you don't look out. It's no use talkin' about things, anyhow."
The wire door creaked again, Mrs. Munn sailed away, and her son hung himself farther over the window-sill. Evidently he had inherited none of his mother's reticence.
"Say," he ventured, confidentially, "Elsie Cameron's home; came yesterday, the very day you came. Ain't that funny?"
The young doctor did not seem to see anything humorous in the coincidence. He glanced meaningly toward the lawnmower.