“Just fine, so far as the school goes.  I don’t particularly like the woman I board with.  Her son is some better, yes, he is much better.  And Robert, what is a Zonoletic Doctor?”

“A poor fool, too lazy to be a real doctor, with no conscience about taking people’s money for nothing,” he said.

“As bad as that?” asked Kate.

“Worse!  Why?” he said.

“Oh, I only wondered,” said Kate.  “Now I am ready, here; but I must run to the house where I board a minute.  It’s only a step.  You watch where I go, and drive down.”

She entered the house quietly and going back to the kitchen she said:  “The folks have come for me, Mrs. Holt.  I don’t know exactly when I shall be back, but in plenty of time to start school.  If George goes before I return, tell him ’Merry Christmas,’ for me.”

“He’ll be most disappointed to death,” said Mrs. Holt.

“I don’t see why he should,” said Kate, calmly.  “You never have had the teacher here at Christmas.”

“We never had a teacher that I wanted before,” said Mrs. Holt; while Kate turned to avoid seeing the woman’s face as she perjured herself.  “You’re like one of the family, George is crazy about you.  He wrote me to be sure to keep you.  Couldn’t you possibly stay over Sunday?”

“No, I couldn’t,” said Kate.

“Who came after you?” asked Mrs. Holt.

“Dr. Gray,” answered Kate.

“That new doctor at Hartley?  Why, be you an’ him friends?”

Mrs. Holt had followed down the hall, eagerly waiting in the doorway.  Kate glanced at her and felt sudden pity.  The woman was warped.  Everything in her life had gone wrong.  Possibly she could not avoid being the disagreeable person she was.  Kate smiled at her.

“Worse than that,” she said.  “We be relations in a few days.  He’s going to marry my sister Nancy Ellen next Tuesday.”

Kate understood the indistinct gurgle she heard to be approving, so she added:  “He came after me early so I could go to Hartley and help get their new house ready for them to live in after the ceremony.”

“Did your father give them the house?” asked Mrs. Holt eagerly.

“No.  Dr. Gray bought his home,” said Kate.

“How nice!  What did your father give them?”

Kate’s patience was exhausted.  “You’ll have to wait until I come back,” she said.  “I haven’t the gift of telling about things before they have happened.”

Then she picked up her telescope and saying “good-bye,” left the house.

As they drove toward Hartley:  “I’m anxious to see your house,” said Kate.  “Did you find one in a good neighbourhood?”

“The very best, I think,” said the doctor.  “That is all one could offer Nancy Ellen.”

“I’m so glad for her!  And I’m glad for you, too!  She’ll make you a beautiful wife in every way.  She’s a good cook, she knows how to economize, and she’s too pretty for words, if she is my sister.”