She said she’d be awfully obliged; and he, looking at his watch, and realizing that Mrs. Houghton’s train was due in less than an hour, hurried off.

The doctor’s bell was not answered promptly; then the doctor detained him by writing down the address, getting it wrong, correcting it, and saying:  “Mrs. Dale?  Oh yes; you are Mr. Dale?”

“No—­not at all!  Just a friend.  I happened to be calling, and Mrs. Dale asked me to stop and ask you to come in.”

Then he rushed off.  On the way to town, staring out of the window of the car, he tingled all over at Doctor Nelson’s question:  “You are Mr. Dale?"...  “Why the devil did I offer to get a doctor?  I wish Lily would move to the ends of the earth; or that the brat would get well; or—­or something.”

There was a little delay in reaching the station, and when he got there, it was to find that Mrs. Houghton’s train was in and she and Edith, shifting for themselves, had presumably taken a hack to find their way to Maurice’s house.  He was mortified, but annoyed, too, because it involved giving Eleanor some sort of lying explanation for his discourtesy.  “I’ll have to cook up some kind of yarn!” he thought, disgustedly...

When Edith and her mother had arrived, unaccompanied by Maurice, Eleanor was sharply worried; had anything happened to him?  Oh, she was afraid something had happened to him!  “Where do you suppose he is?” she said, over and over.  “I’m always so afraid he’s been run over!” And when Maurice, flushed and apologetic, appeared, she was so relieved that she was cross.  What on earth had detained him?  “How did you miss them?”

So Maurice immediately told half of the truth,—­this being easier for him than an out-and-out lie.  He had been detained because he had to go and see a house in Medfield.  “Awfully sorry, Mrs. Houghton!”

Eleanor said she should have thought he needn’t have stayed long enough to be late at the station!  Well, he hadn’t stayed long; but the—­“the tenant was afraid her baby had measles and she had asked him to go and get a doctor, and—­”

“Of course!” Mrs. Houghton said; “don’t give it a thought, Maurice.  John Bennett met us—­you knew he was at the Polytechnical?—­and brought us here.  But, anyhow, Edith and I were quite capable of looking out for ourselves; weren’t we, Edith?”

Edith, almost sixteen now, long-legged, silent, and friendly, said, “Yes, mother” and helped herself so liberally to butter that her hostess thought to herself, "Gracious!"

However, assured that Maurice had not been run over, Eleanor was really indifferent to Edith’s appetite, for the sum Mrs. Houghton had offered for the girl’s board was generous.  So, proud of the new house, and pleased with sitting at the head of her own table, and hoping that Maurice would like the pudding, which, with infinite fussing, she had made with her own hands, she felt both happy and hospitable.  She told Edith to take some more butter (which she did!); and tell Johnny to come to dinner some night, “and we’ll have some music,” she added, kindly.