"All over town!" said Mrs. Somers,—"do try out of town next time, and save yourself trouble."
"Have you got to kill the frog, Julius?" said Miss Harrison with a disturbed face.
"I hope not!" said the doctor gravely. "That would rather interfere with our purposes than otherwise, Sophy.—Aunt Ellen, I never learned the real extent of 'town' yet—when I was a boy it seemed to me to have no limits;—and now it seems to me to have no centre. Tell James to bring in that frog, Sophy."
Miss Harrison retreated from the frog; but the doctor assured Faith that he was in very tolerable circumstances, shut up in a little bag; and that he was only going to be requested to exhibit a small portion of the skin of his toe, and to hold himself still for that purpose; which benevolent action the doctor would help him to perform by putting him in a slight degree of confinement. The holding still was however apparently beyond the frog's benevolent powers, and it was some little time before the doctor could persuade him to it. Then Faith saw what she had never seen nor fully imagined before.
"O Sophy!—O Mrs. Somers!"—she exclaimed,—"look at this!"
She stood back with a face of delighted wonder Miss Harrison looked an instant.
"It is curious—" she said. "What are those little things, Julius?"
"You have heard of the 'circulating medium,'" said the doctor. "That is it."
Faith evidently had never heard of the 'medium' referred to. Turning to her, the doctor began a clear full account of the philosophy of what she saw going on in the frog's foot. But there she met him again.
"Yes, I know, Dr. Harrison,"—she said with the simple tone of perfect intelligence. The doctor bit his lip, while Faith stooped over the microscope and read, and read, what was to be seen there.