Sally, who was desperately afraid of ladders, packed her thin skirts tightly about her, gave a fearful glance below, and began a nervous descent.  At every alternate rung she paused, unwound her skirts, shut her eyes, and breathed hard.

“Please don’t shake it so!” she said.

“Aye dadden’t!” said Alma, merrily.

The ladder slipped an inch, settling a little lower.  Sally uttered a smothered scream.  She dared not move her eyes from the rung immediately in front of them.  Her face was flushed, her hair had slipped back from her damp temples.  It seemed to her as if she must already have climbed down several times the length of the ladder.  At every step she had to kick her skirts free.

“Permit me!” said a kind voice in the world of reeling brick walks and dwarfed gooseberry bushes below her.

Sally, with a thump at her heart, looked down to see Dr. Bates lay a firm hand upon the rocking ladder.

Speechless, she finished the descent, reeling a little unsteadily against the doctor’s shoulder as she faced about on the walk.  Her face was crimson.  To climb down a ladder, with him looking pleasantly up from below, and then to fall into his very arms!  Sally shook out her skirts like a furious hen, and walked, with one chilly inclination of the head for acknowledgment of his courtesy, toward the waiting motor.

“Ferdie has promised Bill Bevis that you will spin me over in the motor,” said the doctor, a little timidly, when they reached it.

Sally eyed him stonily.

“Ferd—­”

“Why, I had promised Bevis that I would look in to-day,” pursued the doctor, uncomfortably; “and when they telephoned about it, a few minutes ago, one of the maids said that she believed that you were going right over, and would bring me.”

“I have changed my mind,” said Sally.  “Perhaps you will drive yourself over?”

“I don’t know anything about motors,” apologized the doctor, gravely.

“Ferd told one of the maids to say I would?” Sally said pleasantly.  “Very well.  Will you get in?”

They got in, Sally driving.  They swept in silence past the lawns, and into the wide, white highway.  A watering-cart had just passed, and the air was fresh and wet.  The afternoon was one of exquisite beauty.  The steamer from San Francisco was just in, and the road was filled with other motor-cars and smart traps.  Sally and the doctor nodded and waved to a score of friends.

“I am as sorry as you are,” said the doctor, awkwardly, after the silence had grown very long.

“Don’t mention it,” said Sally, her face flaming again.  “That’s my brother’s idea of humor.  I—­I shall stay at the Bevises’ overnight.”

“I—­why, I said I would do that!” said Dr. Bates, hastily.  “I just called in to the maid, when she telephoned Bevis, and said, ’Ask him if he can put me up overnight.’  You see, I’ve got my things.”