“To avoid the dust.”

“And pulls down the shades the minute the lamp is lighted——­”

“So do you.”

“I saw her lock the kitchen door in the face of that Mis’ Carter the other day, when she caught sight of her coming up the walk.”

“See here, Fieldsy, you’ve been spying on your neighbours,” said Doctor Churchill severely.  “You despise that sort of thing yourself, so you mustn’t yield to it.  Go over and be neighbourly, as nobody knows how better than yourself, but don’t judge people by their chins or their curls.”

He gave her angular shoulder an affectionate pat, looked straight into her sharp eyes for a moment, until they softened perceptibly, said, “You’re all right, you know,”—­and went whistling away.

“That’s just like your impudence, Andy Churchill,” said Mrs. Hepsibah Fields to herself, as she laid her smooth loaves of bread-dough into their tins and proceeded energetically to scrape the board.  “You always did have a way with you, wheedling folks into doing what they didn’t want to just to please you.  Now I’ve got to go meddling in other people’s business and getting snubbed, most likely, just because you’re trying to combine friendship and doctoring.”

But Mrs. Fields, when her work was done, went to look up her best jelly, as Doctor Churchill had known she would do.  And twenty-four hours had not gone by before she had made friends with Charlotte Birch.

It was not hard to make friends with the girl if one went at it aright.  Mrs. Fields came in as Charlotte was stirring up gingerbread.

“I don’t think much of back-door neighbours,” Mrs. Fields said, “but I didn’t want to come to the front door with my jelly.  I thought maybe your sister would relish my black raspberry.”

“That’s very kind of you,” said Charlotte.  “You are—­I think I’ve seen you across the way.  Won’t you come in?”

“No, thank you.  You’re busy, and so am I. Yes, I’m Doctor Churchill’s housekeeper, and his mother’s before that.”

The sharp eyes noted with approval, in one swift glance as Charlotte turned away with the jelly, the fact that the little kitchen was in careful order.  To be sure, it was four o’clock in the afternoon, an hour when kitchens are supposed to be in order, if ever, yet it was a relief to Mrs. Fields to find this one in that condition.  Brass faucets gleamed in the afternoon sunlight, the teakettle steamed from a shining spout, the linoleum-covered floor was spotless, and the table at which Charlotte was stirring her gingerbread had been scrubbed until it was as nearly white as pine boards can be made.

“Gingerbread?” said the housekeeper, lingering in the doorway.  “I always like to make that.  It seems the biggest result for the smallest labour of anything you can make, and it smells so spicy when it comes out of the oven.”

“Yes, when it isn’t burned,” agreed Charlotte, with a laugh.  Things had gone fairly well with her that day, and her spirits had risen accordingly.