Her hostess, careless through familiarity with it, had given her a dose of one of the chloral mixtures “to let her have a good night’s sleep”; but instead it had sent her into hysterics, and she was calling wildly for her mother to come and take her home.  Father returned from both visits fairly white with rage.  Not at the unfortunates themselves, be it said, but at the cool nonchalance of those who summoned him.

The butler’s was a common enough case.  That of the young girl moved him to pity, and then indignation, as he sifted, out the cause of the attack, in order to treat her intelligently.  This questioning Mrs. Ponsonby resented most emphatically, telling him “to attend to his business and not treat ladies as if they were criminals.”  This to a man of father’s professional ability, and one of over sixty years of age in the bargain.

“Madam,” said he, “you are a criminal; for to my thinking all preventable illness, such as this, is a crime.  Leave the room, and when I have soothed this poor child I will go home; and remember, do not send for me again; it will be useless.”

Never a word did he say of the matter at home, though I read part in his face; but the Ponsonby’s housekeeper, a countrywoman of Martha Corkle’s, took the news to her, adding “and the missus stepped lively too, she did; only, law’s sakes, by next mornin’ she’d forgot all about it, and, we being short-handed, wanted me to go down with James and get the Doctor up to spray her throat for a hoarseness, and I remindin’ her what he’d said, she laughed and answered, ‘He had a bear’s manners,’ but to go tell him she’d pay him city prices, and she bet that would mend him and them!”

I took good care not to repeat this to father, for he would be wounded.  He is beginning to see that they use him as a sort of ambulance surgeon, but he does not yet understand the absolute money insolence of these people to those not of their “set,” whom they consider socially or financially beneath them, and I hope he never may.  He is so full of good will to all men, so pitiful toward weakness and sin, and has kept his faith in human nature through thirty-five years’ practice in a factory town, hospital wards, charcoal camp, and among the odd characters of the scattering hillsides, that it would be an undying shame to have it shattered by the very people that the others regard with hopeless envy.

Shame on you, Barbara, but you are growing bitter.  Yes, I know you do not yourself mind left-handed snubs and remarks about your being “comfortably poor,” but you won’t have that splendid old father of yours put upon and sneezed at, with cigarette sneezes, too.  You should realize that they don’t know any better, also that presently they may become dreadfully bored after the manner of degenerates and move away from the Bluffs, and then companionable, commuting, or summer resident people will have a chance to buy their houses.