“Well enough, Doc’ Ben, but not pretty!” Martie said, laughing.  The doctor’s eyes twinkled.

“They put a tongue in your head, Martie, sure enough!” he said, gathering up the reins.

“It was all they did put, then!” Martie giggled.

The girls all liked Doc’ Ben.  A widower, rich enough now to take only what practice he pleased, simple in his tastes, he lived with his old servant, his horse and cow, his dog and cat, chickens and bees, pigeons and rabbits, in a comfortable, shabby establishment in an unfashionable part of town.  Monroe described him as a “regular character.”  His jouncing, fat figure—­with tobacco ash spilled on his spotted vest, and stable mud on his high-laced boots—­was familiar in all her highways and byways.  His mellow voice, shot with humorous undertones even when he was serious, touched with equal readiness upon Plato, the habits of bees, the growth of fungus, fashions, Wordsworth, the Civil War, or the construction of chimneys.  He was something of a philosopher, something of a poet, something of a reformer.

Martie, watching him out of sight, said to herself that she really must go down soon and see old Dr. Ben, poke among his old books, feed his pigeons, and scold him for his untidy ways.  The girl’s generous imagination threw a veil of romance over his life; she told Sally that he was like some one in an English story.

After he had gone, the girls idled into the Town Library, a large room with worn linoleum on the floor, and with level sunlight streaming in the dusty windows.  At the long table devoted to magazines a few readers were sitting; others hovered over the table where books just returned were aligned; and here and there, before the dim bookcases that lined the walls, still others loitered, now and then picking a book from the shelves, glancing at it, and restoring it to its place.  The room was warm and close with the smell of old books.  The whisking of pages, and occasionally a sibilant whisper, were its only sounds.  From the ceiling depended signs, bearing the simple command:  “Silence”; but this did not prevent the girls from whispering to the energetic, gray-haired woman who presided at the desk.

“Hello, girls!” said Miss Fanny Breck cheerfully, in the low tone she always used in the library.  “Want anything to read?  You don’t?  What are you reading, Martie?”

“I’m reading ‘Idylls of the King,’” Sally said.

“I’ve got ‘Only the Governess,’” added Grace.

“I didn’t ask either of you,” Miss Breck said with the brisk amused air of correction that made the girls a little afraid of her.  “It’s Martie here I’m interested in.  I’m going to scold her, too.  Are you reading that book I gave you, Martie?”

Martie, as Grace and Sally turned away, raised smiling eyes.  But at Miss Fanny’s keen, kindly look she was smitten with a sudden curious inclination toward tears.  She was keenly sensitive, and she felt an undeserved rebuke.