“But we must plan about Mr. Bowen.  Will it cost very, very much?”

“My, no; he’s got a good suit of clothes, and that’s the most that’s wanted.  His fare from here to New York and back ’ll be the heft of the expense.”

“If that is all, he shall go to-morrow.  I have more than enough money on hand for that, and a good deal of incidental expense beside.”

“I reckon he’ll pay you all back; for he was a prime book-keeper before he lost his eyesight.  He’s a good scholar, too, and got a first-rate salary.”

“Then he will leave me deeper in debt than ever.”

“What for?” she asked curiously.

“Many things—­his prayers most of all.  Lessons of patience and faith, too, that money never could buy.”

She remained silent until we reached Mrs. Larkum’s.  We found the doctor there.  He was an old acquaintance.  I had met him at a good many evening parties, and at a garden-party or two, where he had several times been my partner in lawn tennis, and an excellent partner I had found him, making up for any lack of skill on my part.

His greeting was exceedingly cordial, and in a blunt way he plunged right into the business in hand.  “We are very glad to see you; we have some grave advice to ask.”

“I feel quite elated at making one in a medical consultation,” I said with a smile.

“I am not sure if you have not done more to restore health in this house than I. The world is too slow recognizing other healers than those embraced by the medical faculties.”

“It’s my opinion doctors knows less than one thinks of folks’ insides.  They’re as apt to make mistakes about people dying or getting well as any of us.  I don’t put near as much faith in ’em as the common run of folks,” Mrs. Blake said with delicious candor.

“Really, I thought you had a better opinion of us as a profession than that.  If you get sick, you will of course dispense with our services.”

Mrs. Blake looked perplexed, but after a moment’s hesitation she said: 

“If I was sick I’d want to see a doctor just as much as anybody.  Their medicine is all right; for God made that.  It’s their judgment that’s so onreliable.”

“And who is to blame for their judgment?” the doctor asked mischievously.

She hesitated, but her mother wit soon extricated her from the difficulty.

“There’s lots of folks doing what the Lord didn’t intend them to do—­doctors as well as others.”

“Well done, Mrs. Blake, I will retire from the field before I am annihilated altogether.”

“You needn’t be in a hurry to go.  We’d like to get this business settled first,” Mrs. Blake said, a trifle anxiously, misunderstanding the doctor’s meaning.  He threw me a meaning glance, and afterward whispered,—­“That woman is a diamond in the rough.  Given a fair start in life, she would have found a proper sphere in almost any calling.”