softly.

Dr. Cheyney disentangled the rein again from old Henk’s tail, and they turned the corner.

“Diana,” he said abruptly, “did you happen to ask Caleb Trench to call?”

“I?” Diana flushed crimson. “No,” she said reluctantly, “I didn’t.”

Dr. Cheyney shook with silent laughter. “That’s the way you treat the good Samaritan,” he said. “I’d rather be the Levite, Di.”

She leaned back in her corner of the carriage, blushing but resentful, a line between her brows. “It wouldn’t be any use,” she said. “I—I couldn’t make him feel welcome there.”

“You mean that Cousin Jacob would insult him,” Dr. Cheyney said bluntly.

She stiffened. “I should protect my own guests,” she retorted hotly.

“Could you?” asked the doctor dryly.

Diana met his eyes indignantly; then a throb of pain in her ankle made her wince.

“I reckon it does hurt, Di.” The old man smiled[58] compassionately. “I’ll bandage it when we get you home. Don’t be capering off your horse again in thunder-storms.”

[58]

“I’d be sure to break my neck next time, I suppose,” she said ruefully.

“Let it be a leg, Di,” advised the doctor, “that would give me a job; the other would all go to the undertaker. He told me once,” he added, with a twinkle, “that we worked so much together we ought to have a common interest. I believe he wanted to found a trust—‘doctors’ and undertakers’ amalgamated protected’—or something of that sort. I begged off on the ground of injury to my profession. I told him it wouldn’t do for a poor man like me to go into a trust with a rich planter.”

“Dr. Cheyney,” Diana interrupted, “I don’t want you to think that Jacob Eaton rules our house; he has more influence with father than I wish he had, but he can’t rule father.”

“I suppose you’ll marry him in the end,” William Cheyney remarked reflectively.

Diana, leaning back in her corner, looked thoughtful. “No,” she said slowly, “I don’t believe I will.”

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