“We have just had a similar inquiry as to Dr. Pemberton’s locality; I mean,” said the master of the emporium, without replying to my request, “on the part of a very distinguished-looking personage—­I might say, well got up in the fur and overcoat line—­and, had you come in a few moments earlier, you might have had his escort; or perhaps you are on his track now—­probably one of his party?” hesitatingly.  “No!  Well, it is a strange coincidence, to say the least—­very strange—­as the doctor is so well known hereabouts.  As to going out in the storm again, I have my misgivings, miss, for you, when I look at the flimsiness of your attire and its drenched condition.  I can’t see, indeed, how a delicate-looking lady like yourself ever held her own against this terrific wind.  Eolus seems to have lost his bags!  But, perhaps you had an escort to the corner?”

“No—­no—­no—­I came quite alone!  Oh, for pity’s sake, put me on my way and let me go!  My business is most urgent!” I hesitated—­my heart sank.  Had Bainrothe been before me to spirit the doctor away by some feigned message of need, of distress, to which no inclemency of weather could close that benevolent medical ear?  And did he lie in wait for me on the way?”

“Perhaps I had, after all, better go alone,” I continued; “it might be too great an inconvenience”—­and I moved toward the ground-glass door.

“Not if you will accept my services, miss,” said Caleb, timidly, pushing away the remaining corks as he spoke, and glancing furtively at his master.

“How often must I remind you, Caleb Fink,” said the owner of the emporium, “that your sphere is circumscribed to your duties?  Attend to those phials, and drain them well before you bottle the citrate of magnesia.  The last was spoiled by your unpardonable carelessness.  I have not forgotten this!”

And again, with a deprecatory look at me, Caleb Fink subsided into a nonentity.

“Truly has the great and wise Dr. Perkins remarked that ’the women of America are suicidal from the cradle to the grave!’ I will give you one of his pamphlets, miss, to take away with you, and you will be convinced that slippers are serpents in disguise in winter weather!  The wooden shoes of Germany rather!  Ay, or even the sabot of France!  You must not stir another step in those.  Be seated, pray, and I will not detain you long, while I procure a substitute or protection for such shams, worth nothing in such Siberian weather.—­Caleb, a word with you;” and he whispered to his apprentice, who glided away, to return in a trice with a pair of India-rubber overshoes, into which benign boats he proceeded to thrust my unresisting feet, as I stood leaning on the counter; after which a muffler was tied about my ears, and a heavy honey-comb shawl thrown over my shoulders by the same expeditious hands.

“Could you be always as spry, Caleb!  Your gloves now—­I shall need my own”—­and a pair of stalwart knitted mits were forthwith drawn over my passive hands, in which my fingers nestled undivided and warm.