She looked up again, calmly, but not at him.  A kindly, gray-whiskered old gentleman came tottering and rocking into view, his rosy, wrinkled face beaming benediction on the world as he passed through it—­on the sunshine dappling the undergrowth, on the furry squirrels sitting up on their hind legs to watch him pass, on the stray dickybird that hopped fearlessly in his path, at the young man sitting very rigid there on his bench, at the fair, sweet-faced girl who met his aged eyes with the gentlest of involuntary smiles.  And Carden did not recognize him!

Who could help smiling confidently into that benign face, with its gray hair and gray whiskers?  Goodness radiated from every wrinkle.

“Dr. Atwood!” exclaimed the girl softly as she rose to meet this marvelous imitation of Dr. Austin Atwood, the great specialist on children’s diseases.

The old man beamed weakly at her, halted, still beaming, fumbled for his eyeglasses, adjusted them, and peered closely into her face.

“Bless my soul,” he smiled, “our pretty Dr. Hollis!”

“I—­I did not suppose you would remember me,” she said, rosy with pleasure.

“Remember you?  Surely, surely.”  He made her a quaint, old-fashioned bow, turned, and peeped across the walk at Carden.  And Carden, looking straight into his face, did not know the old man, who turned to Dr. Hollis again with many mysterious nods of his doddering head.

“You’re watching him, too, are you?” he chuckled, leaning toward her.

“Watching whom, Dr. Atwood?” she asked surprised.

“Hush, child!  I thought you had noticed that unfortunate and afflicted young man opposite.”

Dr. Hollis looked curiously at Carden, then at the old gentleman with gray whiskers.

“Please sit down, Dr. Atwood, and tell me,” she murmured.  “I have noticed nothing in particular about the young man on the bench there.”  And she moved to give him room; and the young man opposite stared at them both as though bereft of reason.

“A heavy book for small hands, my child,” said the old gentleman in his quaintly garrulous fashion, peering with dimmed eyes at the volume in her lap.

She smiled, looking around at him.

“My, my!” he said, tremblingly raising his eyeglasses to scan the title on the page; “Dr. Lamour’s famous works!  Are you studying Lamour, child?”

“Yes,” she said with that charming inflection youth reserves for age.

“Astonishing!” he murmured.  “The coincidence is more than remarkable.  A physician!  And studying Lamour’s Disease!  Incredible!”

“Is there anything strange in that, Dr. Atwood?” she smiled.

“Strange!” He lowered his voice, peering across at Carden.  “Strange, did you say?  Look across the path at that poor young man sitting there!”

“Yes,” she said, perplexed, “I see him.”

“What do you see?” whispered the old gentleman in a shakily portentous voice.  “Here you sit reading about what others have seen; now what do you see?”