Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/164

 do much harm any way. You didn't happen to ketch yourself givin' the wrong kind now, did you?"

At this juncture another customer came in and the small inquisition ceased, only to recommence in another form. Happily not many of his examiners were as searching in their methods as Miss Grig, and Anson rarely found himself cornered. By and by, too, the little flurry of curiosity subsided, and it was not long before the neighbors had almost forgotten how "Dr. Bennett" came by his title. To this, however, they clung with a tenacity which it was useless to combat. How he hated it! He used at first to feel as though his friends were jeering at him when they called him "doctor," and even in after years the long-accustomed title would sometimes bring a hot flush to his face.

Several years went by before arate Alice Ives was married, and then it was that Anson allowed himself the one extravagance of his life. He went to the city and bought a water-color, for which he paid more than he would have been willing to admit. The picture was not much appreciated in the community, but Alice liked it. A branch of apple-blossoms against a pale blue sky. So exquisitely were they painted that even the cavillers owned that you could almost smell them, but "after all," they added, "it was nothing but a picture of apple-blossoms, just like what anybody could see every spring, and you