You would hate it, Peggy, and so would I, but Esther loves it, and grudges every moment she is away.”

Peggy laughed.

“I can imagine it! The little rascals scrawling substantives on their slates—‘O frog—To a frog—By, with, or from a frog!’ and Esther’s solemn distress over a wrong termination. Isn’t it a blessing that we are made differently, and that some people are born with such wonderful patience and forbearance? I pity their poor little knuckles if I were in charge. But then I was always hastily inclined. Your father used to say that Esther and Rob had far more of the scholarly spirit than Rex, though he must have worked hard to get through his examinations so well. Dear old Rex, how I should love to see him again! It seems so funny to think of him as a full-fledged doctor, with a practice of his own! How does he like living in the North, and how does he get on?”

Mellicent shrugged her shoulders uncertainly.

“Pretty well, only it’s such a disgustingly bracing place that no one is ever ill. Rex says it is most depressing to look out of the windows and see the healthy faces! He gets so tired waiting for patients who never come. I stayed with him for a week in the winter, and whenever the bell rang we used to rush out into the hall, and peer over the banisters to see who was there, and if it was a patient Rex kept him waiting for ten minutes by his watch, to pretend that he was busy, though he was really dying to fly downstairs at once. He makes very little money, and father has to help him a good deal; but last month something happened which he hopes will help him on. The mayor of the town had a carriage accident just opposite his house, and was nearly killed. Wasn’t it luck for Rex? He was so pleased! The mayor was carried into the house, and could not be moved for days, and the papers were full of ‘Dr Asplin this, and Dr Asplin that,’ as if he was the biggest doctor they had! The mayoress seems to have taken a fancy to him too, for she begs him to go to their house as often as he likes, without waiting to be asked. It will be nice for Rex to have some friends in the town, for he daren’t go far from home. Oswald and his wife live within an hour’s rail, and often invite him there, but he is afraid to go, in case a patient should appear!”

“Oswald’s wife! How strange it sounds! I have never heard anything about her, and am so curious to know what she is like! What account did Rex bring when he came home from the wedding?”

“He said he couldn’t attempt to describe her, 

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