"Have you come to live here?" she asked as they drove along.
"No," he answered. "I am only putting in the time until I can settle down to a practice of my own. I have just heard of one which I shall buy if I can get an appointment I am trying for in the same place."
"What is the appointment?" Beth asked.
"It's a hospital I want to be put in charge of," he answered casually,—"a small affair, but I should get a regular income from it, and that would make my rent, and all that sort of thing, secure. A doctor has to set up with a show of affluence."
"It is a terrible profession to me, the medical profession," Beth said. "The responsibilities must be so great and so various."
"Oh, I never think of that," he answered easily.
"I should," Beth rejoined.
"Yes, you would, of course," he said; "and that shows what folly it is for women to go in for medicine. They worry about this and that, things that are the patient's look-out, not the doctor's, and make no end of mischief; besides always losing their heads in a difficulty."
Just then the horse, which had been very fidgety all the way, bolted. The blood rushed into the doctor's face. "Sit tight! sit tight!" he exclaimed. "Don't now,—now don't move and make a fuss. Keep cool."
"Keep cool yourself," said Beth dryly. "I'm all right."