“I shouldn’t pay you anything I didn’t think was right,” she returned, sharply, “unless I was made to by law.  As long as you’ve got to come every day for a spell, and mebbe twice, I’ll give you five dollars the day Minty walks again.  If that won’t do, I’ll get the doctor over to the Ridge.”

Doctor Ralph coughed so hard that he was obliged to cover his face with his handkerchief.  “I should think,” said Miss Mehitable, “that if you were as good a doctor as you pretend to be, you’d cure your own coughin’ spells.  First thing you know, you’ll be running into quick consumption.  Will five dollars do?”

Ralph bowed, but his face was very red and he appeared to be struggling with some secret emotion.  “I couldn’t think of taking as much as five dollars, Miss Hitty,” he said, gallantly.  “I should not have ventured to suggest over four and a half.”

“He’s cheaper than his father,” thought Miss Hitty, quickly suspicious.  “That’s because he ain’t as good a doctor.”

“Four and a half, then,” she said aloud.  “Is it a bargain?”

“It is,” said Ralph, “and I’ll take the best possible care of Araminta.  Shake hands on it.”  He went out, his shoulders shaking with suppressed merriment, and Miss Hitty watched him through the grimy front window.

“Seems sort of decent,” she thought, “and not too grasping.  He might be real nice if he wasn’t a man.”

X

Ralph’s First Case

“Father,” said Ralph at breakfast, “I got my first case yesterday.”

Anthony Dexter smiled at the tall, straight young fellow who sat opposite him.  He did not care about the case but he found endless satisfaction in Ralph.

“What was it?” he asked, idly.

“Broken ankle.  I only happened to get it because you were out.  I was accused of being a ‘play doctor,’ but, under the circumstances, I had to do.”

“Miss Mehitable?” queried Doctor Dexter, with lifted brows.  “I wouldn’t have thought her ankles could be broken by anything short of machinery.”

“Guess they couldn’t,” laughed Ralph.  “Anyhow, they were all right at last accounts.  It’s Araminta—­the pretty little thing who lives with the dragon.”

“Oh!” There was the merest shade of tenderness in the exclamation.  “How did it happen?”

“Divesting the circumstance of all irrelevant material,” returned Ralph, reaching for another crisp roll, “it was like this.  With true missionary spirit and in the belief that cleanliness is closely related to godliness, Miss Mehitable determined to clean the old house on the hill.  The shack has been empty a long time; but now has a tenant—­of whom more anon.

“Miss Mehitable’s own mansion, it seems, has been scrubbed inside and out, and painted and varnished and generally torn up, even though it is early in the year for such unholy doings.  Having finished her own premises, and still having strength in her elbow, and the housecleaning microbe being yet on an unchecked rampage through her virtuous system, and there being some soap left, Miss Mehitable wanders up to the house with her pail.