“Of course,” said the doctor, “it's become a habit with him now, or a mania. He seems to speak of his trouble as if mentioning it were a sort of conjuration to prevent it. I wouldn't venture to check him in his way of talking. He may find strength in it.”
“It's all terrible!”
“But it isn't by any means hopeless.”
“I'm so glad to hear you say so. You see a great deal of them, I believe?”
“Yes,” said the doctor, getting back from their seriousness, with apparent relief. “Pretty nearly every day. Putney and I consider the ways of God to man a good deal together. You can imagine that in a place like Hatboro' one would make the most of such a friend. In fact, anywhere.”
“Yes, of course,” Annie assented. “Dr. Morrell,” she added, in that effect of continuing the subject with which one breaks away from it, “do you know much about South Hatboro'?”
“I have some patients there.”
“I was there this morning—”
“I heard of you. They all take a great interest in your theatricals.”
“In my theatricals? Really this is too much! Who has made them my theatricals, I should like to know? Everybody at South Hatboro' talked as if I had got them up.”