“To cure her, of course,” returned the broker, his lips breaking into smiles.  “Why do doctors generally visit patients?”

“Then when he came the second time he found her well?”

“Ha, ha,” laughed Mr. Evringham, “yes, that’s it.  He found her well.”

Eloise and her mother gazed at him in astonishment.  Mrs. Forbes’s face was immovable.  A sense of humor was not included in her mental equipment, and she considered the whole affair lamentable and unseemly in the extreme.

“Grandpa,” said Jewel, looking at him with gentle reproach, “you’re not laughing at Dr. Ballard, are you?  He’s the kindest man.  I love him, next to you, best of anybody in Bel-Air”—­then thinking this declaration might hurt her aunt and cousin, she added, “because I know him the best, you know.  He tried to deceive me about the medicine, but it was only because he didn’t know that there isn’t any righteous deceiving.  He meant to do me good.”

Mrs. Evringham looked curiously from the child to her father-in-law.  As she herself said later, she had never felt so “out of it” in her life.  As the subject concerned Dr. Ballard, she wished to understand clearly what circumstance could possibly have induced Mr. Evringham to laugh repeatedly.

“I was passing your door this afternoon,” said Eloise, addressing Jewel, “and I heard you talking.  I knew there was no one with you, and I feared you were very ill.”

The little girl was always pleased when her beautiful cousin looked at her.

“I guess I was reading.  Of course I was in a hurry to get well, so as soon as the fever was gone and I felt comfortable, I began to read out loud from ‘Science and Health’ to Anna Belle.  She’s a Christian Scientist, too.”

The faces of Mrs. Evringham and Eloise were studies as they gazed at the speaker.

Mr. Evringham glanced at them maliciously under his heavy brows as Sarah brought in the second course.

“Is Anna Belle your doll?” asked Eloise, for the moment sufficiently interested almost to lose her self-consciousness.

“Yes,” eagerly.  “Would you like to see her?” Jewel gave a fleeting glance at Mrs. Forbes.  “She always comes to the table with me at home,” she added.

“Sit still,” murmured Mrs. Forbes in low, sepulchral warning.

“Now then, Jewel,” said Mr. Evringham as he began to serve the filet, “you didn’t take the doctor’s medicine.  What do you think made that high fever go away?”

The little girl looked up brightly.  “Oh, I telegraphed to Mrs. Lewis, one of mother’s friends in Chicago, to treat me.”

“The dev—­What do you mean, child?”

Mr. Evringham gazed at her, and his tone was so fierce, although he was only very much amazed, that Jewel’s smile faded.  The corners of her lips drew down pitifully, and suddenly she slipped from her chair, and running to him threw her arms around his neck and buried her averted face, revealing two forlorn little flaxen pigtails devoid of ribbons.