have called in the other doctor.  Joppa had learned by heart its duty toward its neighbor from its earliest, stammering infancy, and it adhered strictly to the path therein marked out.  It inquired after Phebe diligently; it thoroughly mastered all possible intricacies of her case; it made her gifts digestible and indigestible; and it said that, by all odds, it was Dr. Harrison who should have attended her from the first.  Dr. Dennis took very good care of her, nevertheless, and it was not long before he pronounced that all she needed was quiet and rest to complete the cure.

“We shall have her out of bed in a few days now, Mrs. Lane; in a week or so perhaps,” he said, as he passed out at the front door where Mrs. Lane was standing talking with Mrs. Hardcastle.  “She is doing very well, as well as I could wish.  All she needs is rest.  Keep her perfectly quiet.”  And the doctor bowed himself off, first politely inquiring of Mrs. Hardcastle after her husband’s gout and her own dyspepsia.

“He is a fair-spoken man, certainly, very,” said Mrs. Hardcastle, “though I won’t say that I shouldn’t prefer Dr. Harrison in the long run as surest to bring his patient through.  I think I’ll just go up with this myself to Phebe, Mrs. Lane.  I suppose she’s longing for visitors by now, poor soul!”

“Well, I dare say.  You know her room,—­just at the head of the stairs.  Go right up, and I’ll step out to market.”

“Now, my dear,” said Mrs. Hardcastle, rustling into Phebe’s room, “I thought I would come up and have a look at you myself to make sure how you were.  No, don’t move.  You do look pale, but that’s all.  Glad to see your pretty face isn’t harmed.  Why, I heard one whole side of it was about burned off.  I’ve brought you some wine-jelly, my dear.”

“She had a lot yesterday, Pheeb did,” said Olly, who was curled up with a geography in a corner of the room and furtively cutting Europe out of the maps.  “She doesn’t need any more.”

“Oh, but this is some of my own make.  This is quite different from anybody else’s,” declared Mrs. Hardcastle.  “Phebe remembers my jelly of old, don’t you, dear?”

Phebe smiled faintly.  All she remembered at the moment was being invariably requested by the good lady to come and make it for her whenever she gave a party.

“I thought I heard talking and so I ventured to come up too,” said a timid voice, and Miss Delano tiptoed softly in.  “Phebe, my dear child, my dear child!” and the soft-hearted little old maid stooped to kiss Phebe’s pale cheek, and straightway began to whimper.

“Come, none of that,” said Mrs. Upjohn’s peremptory tones, as that lady swept into the little room, seeming to fill it all to overflowing.  “I met the doctor just now and he said Phebe was to be kept perfectly quiet.  Don’t let’s have any weeping over her.  She wants cheering up, and she isn’t quite dead yet, you know, though really the evening before last, Phebe, I heard that you weren’t expected to live the night through.”