“Ha!” mused the doctor, pulling his nose; “I see!  Do you insist upon a sacrosanct meal hour?  Are your meal hours fixed, even as the laws of the Medes and the Persians?”

“How else, pray, shall one run one’s house with any degree of system?” I wanted to know.

“Bunk!” snorted the doctor. “I eat when I’m hungry!  Now, lastly, sister, tell me truthfully:  are you a Democrat or a Republican?”

“I don’t see much difference:  they’re both of them nothing but men.”

“I knew it!” The doctor shook his head with sad triumph.  “She’d scratch Brown, because she didn’t like the expression of his ears, and vote for Jones, because he had such beautiful whiskers!  My dear, dear woman, can’t you see that it’s almost a law of nature for you and me, who don’t agree about anything, to marry each other?”

“I don’t even agree with you as to that!” said I, and fell into helpless laughter.

“It rather looks like flying in the face of Providence not to,” he warned me.  “In the meantime—­”

“In the meantime, let us be grateful Alicia didn’t put the notion into your head to ask somebody who might have taken you seriously.”

“That means you don’t, and won’t.”  He drew a long breath.  “But we’re good friends; aren’t we, Sophy?”

“If a man never does anything worse than ask a woman to marry him, he will probably retain her friendship until she dies,” I replied.

“Provided she refuses him,” the doctor said, gratefully.  And bending down, he kissed me brotherly on the cheek, an honest and resounding smack; at which opportune moment Alicia walked in.

Wholly unabashed, the doctor spoke pleasantly to Alicia, shook hands with me effusively, and went off whistling.  All was right with the world.  I’d refused him, you understand!  Instead of being enraged and offended, I found myself giggling.

That night, as Alicia didn’t come in my room, I went into hers.

“I know what you’ve come to tell me, Sophy dear,” she said, directly.  “I’ve seen it for some time.  And I’m glad as glad—­glad with all my heart, Sophy.”  Her voice was tenderness itself, her eyes melted.  But the hand on my hand was cold.  “I love you a great deal, Sophy,” she whispered.  “More than anybody else in the world, I think.”

“And was it because you loved me, dear girl, that you put the absurd notion of asking me to marry him into Doctor Geddes’s head?”

“Absurd notion?” repeated Alicia.  “Absurd notion?  But he asked you!  Didn’t he ask you?”

“As to that, he told me I could marry him if I wanted to,” I admitted.  “Oh, Leetchy, it was funny, though!  If you could have seen the poor dear, trying to martyr himself, just to oblige you—­”

“You refused him?” breathlessly.

“Of course.  There wasn’t anything to say but ‘No.’”

“But—­I saw—­”

“You saw him kiss me on the cheek?  Honey, that wasn’t love:  that was gratitude!”