remember Dr. Kemp from last night?”      

       “Yes. Don’t go, Ruth, please; Jules, hadn’t you something to do downstairs?”      

       Did she imagine for a moment that she could still conceal her trouble from his tender watchfulness? Great dark rings encircled her now feverishly bright eyes; her mouth trembled visibly; and as Ruth drew aside, her mother’s shaking fingers held tight to her hand.     

       “I have nothing in the world to do,” replied Levice, heartily; “I am going to sit right here and get interested.”      

       “You will have to submit to a friendly cross-examination, Mrs. Levice,”        said the physician.     

       He drew a chair up before her and took both her hands in his. As Ruth relinquished her hold, she encountered a pair of pleasantly authoritative gray eyes, and instantly divining their expression, left the room.     

       She descended a few steps to the windowed landing. Here she intended joining the doctor on his way down. Probably her father would follow him; but it was her intention to intercept any such plan. A fog had arisen, and the struggling rosy beams of the sun glimmered opalescently through the density. Ruth thought it would be clear by noon, when she and her mother could go for a stirring tramp. She stood lost in thought till a firm footfall on the stairs aroused her.     

       “I see Miss Levice here; don’t come down,” Kemp was saying. “What further directions I have must be given to a woman.”      

       “Stay with Mamma, Father,” called Ruth, looking up at her hesitating father; “I shall see the doctor out;” and she quickly ran down the few remaining steps to Kemp, awaiting her at the foot. She opened the door of the library, and closing it quickly behind them, turned to him expectantly.     

       “Nothing to be alarmed at,” he said, answering her mute inquiry. He seated himself at the table, and drew from his vest-pocket pencil and blank. Without another glance at the girl, he wrote rapidly for some minutes; then quickly moving back his chair, he arose and handed her the two slips of paper.     

       “The first is a tonic which you will have made up,” he explained, picking    

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