The doctor appeared to have forgotten his own question, and not to have heard Miss Armstrong’s.

“You are looking remarkably well,” he said.  “You ought to be ashamed to meet me:  if everybody else were like you, I should starve.”

“All your own fault, dear doctor.  Your presence brings cheerfulness and health.”

“To say nothing of the medicine.  Of that (in confidence between us), the less the better.  If I should ever become crazy enough to prescribe any other than bread pills, be sure to throw them out of the window.  There, you have the secret of medical success; though if I pursue the system much longer, I think I shall be obliged to adopt the Emperor of China’s plan, and require a salary for your health, on condition it shall stop when you are sick.”

“I admire the Emperor’s plan, so let it be understood that is the arrangement between us.  I have the best of the bargain, for I shall secure a greater number of visits.”

“You provoking creature! smothering me with compliments, and pretending you are not dying with curiosity.  This is always the way with your tormenting sex: 

  ’Let Hercules do what he may,
  The cat will mew’”—­

“And girls will have their way,” interrupted Faith, laughing, and finishing the quotation to suit herself.  “But, doctor, you have conquered, and please now ‘unmuzzle your wisdom.’”

“Methinks,” cried the doctor, “’sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man; but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit,’ else I should not allow you to tease me.  But,” added he, in a more serious tone, “there is a report in the village that an attempt has been made to arrest Holden.”

“To arrest whom?” exclaimed Faith, turning pale, “father Holden!  For what?”

“He is not taken yet, and, were one to believe all the stories one hears, not likely to be.  According to them, his enchanted castle on Salmon Island is protected, not only by his own stalwart arm, but by legions of ghosts and hobgoblins; and, since that is the case, he may safely defy the posse comitatus itself, with the sheriff at its head.  But, for the cause—­

  “’It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,
  Let me not name it to you, ye chaste stars,
  It is the cause’—­

Why, because he made the most interesting speech at conference the other evening.”

Miss Armstrong, whom the jesting manner of the doctor somewhat re-assured, begged him to give her all the information he had obtained; but, throwing aside what he considered the embellishments of fancy, it was no more than what he had already imparted.

“What would be the punishment for such an offence?” inquired Faith.

“I am more learned in pills than in points of law; but I suppose some trifling fine.”