Such were some of the crude facts as Dr. Butts found them in books or gathered them from his own experience.  He soon discovered that the story had got about the village that Maurice Kirkwood was the victim of an “antipathy,” whatever that word might mean in the vocabulary of the people of the place.  If he suspected the channel through which it had reached the little community, and, spreading from that centre, the country round, he did not see fit to make out of his suspicions a domestic casus belli.  Paolo might have mentioned it to others as well as to himself.  Maurice might have told some friend, who had divulged it.  But to accuse Mrs. Butts, good Mrs. Butts, of petit treason in telling one of her husband’s professional secrets was too serious a matter to be thought of.  He would be a little more careful, he promised himself, the next time, at any rate; for he had to concede, in spite of every wish to be charitable in his judgment, that it was among the possibilities that the worthy lady had forgotten the rule that a doctor’s patients must put their tongues out, and a doctor’s wife must keep her tongue in.

VIII

The Pansophian society.

The Secretary of this association was getting somewhat tired of the office, and the office was getting somewhat tired of him.  It occurred to the members of the Society that a little fresh blood infused into it might stir up the general vitality of the organization.  The woman suffragists saw no reason why the place of Secretary need as a matter of course be filled by a person of the male sex.  They agitated, they made domiciliary visits, they wrote notes to influential citizens, and finally announced as their candidate the young lady who had won and worn the school name of “The Terror,” who was elected.  She was just the person for the place:  wide awake, with all her wits about her, full of every kind of knowledge, and, above all, strong on points of order and details of management, so that she could prompt the presiding officer, to do which is often the most essential duty of a Secretary.  The President, the worthy rector, was good at plain sailing in the track of the common moralities and proprieties, but was liable to get muddled if anything came up requiring swift decision and off-hand speech.  The Terror had schooled herself in the debating societies of the Institute, and would set up the President, when he was floored by an awkward question, as easily as if he were a ninepin which had been bowled over.

It has been already mentioned that the Pansophian Society received communications from time to time from writers outside of its own organization.  Of late these had been becoming more frequent.  Many of them were sent in anonymously, and as there were numerous visitors to the village, and two institutions not far removed from it, both full of ambitious and intelligent young persons, it was often impossible to trace the papers to their authors.  The new Secretary was alive with curiosity, and as sagacious a little body as one might find if in want of a detective.  She could make a pretty shrewd guess whether a paper was written by a young or old person, by one of her own sex or the other, by an experienced hand or a novice.