sitting on the box hedge and on the doorstep. She evaded them good-naturedly, but it was some time before she was admitted by the rebellious Frieda, who had been summoned to the front door some sixteen times during the forenoon.

When Dr. Anna finally found herself in the dark hall she saw that Frieda's face was swollen and tied up in a towel. The spectacle gave the doctor an instant opportunity.

"The worst infliction on earth, bar none!" she announced, following the maid into the kitchen. "Let me take a look at it? How long have you had it?"

"Two days," replied Frieda sullenly, unamenable to sympathy which offered no immediate surcease of pain.

"Abscess?"

"Don't know."

Frieda's mental processes were slow. Before she could follow the doctor's the bandage was ripped off and a sharp eye was examining the inflamed interior of her cavernous mouth. A moment later Dr. Anna had opened her doctor's bag and was anointing the surroundings of the tortured tooth with a brown liquid.

"That won't cure it," she said, "but no dentist could[Pg 92] do more until the swelling is reduced. And it will save you a preliminary bill. Keep this. As soon as you feel you can stand it, go to Dr. Meyers, Main Street. Tell him I sent you. But why didn't you tell Mrs. Balfame last night? Why endure pain? Kind mistresses always keep such alleviatives in the house, and Mrs. Balfame is not the sort to mind being roused in the middle of the night if some one were suffering."

[Pg 92]

The pain had subsided under treatment, and Frieda was restored to such civility as she knew. "It only got bad when I am dancing to the hall, and I ran home. I had some drops in my room."

"Oh, I see. Did they stop the pain?"

"Nix. Ache like before, but I lie down and perhaps can sleep if those men have not make me come downstairs to make the coffee. All night I am up." And she glowered with self-pity.

"But when you found that your drops were no good, why didn't you run at once to Mrs. Balfame? You were braver than I should have been. It was about eight o'clock, was it not, when Mr. Balfame was shot? Mrs. Balfame was probably awake when you came in, even if she had gone to bed. Or perhaps you didn't know that she came home early?"

"On 

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