Coming at last to an old white farmhouse, Richard dismounted and went in. The old man bent with rheumatism welcomed him, and the old wife said, "He is always better when he knows that you are coming, doctor."
The old man nodded. "Your gran'dad used to come. I was a little boy an' croupy, and he seemed big as a house when he came in at the door. He was taller than you, and thin."
"Now, father," the old woman protested, "the young doctor ain't fat."
"He's fatter'n his gran'dad. But I ain't saying that I don't like it. I like meat on a man's bones."
Richard laughed. "Just so that I don't go the way of Cousin Brin. You know Brinsley Tyson, don't you?"
"He's the fat twin. Yes, I know him and David. David comes and reads to me, but Brinsley went to Baltimore, and now he don't seem to remember that we were boys together, and went to the Crossroads school."
After that they spoke of the little new teacher, and Richard revelled in the praise they gave her. She was worshipped, they said, by the people roundabout. There had never been another like her.
"I think she was the most beautiful lady,
That ever was in the West Country——"
was Richard's enlargement of their theme. In the weeks just past he had seen much of her, and it had seemed to him that life began and ended with his thought of her.
When he rose to go the old woman went to the door with him. "I guess we owe you a lot by this time," she remarked; "you've made so many calls. It cheers him up to have you, but you'd better stop now that he don't need you. It's so far, and we ain't good pay like some of them."
