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 humor around his lively bright eyes. "Money might pay you," he continued, his face clouding with seriousness, "for your surgical attention, but money can't reach the other service I'm indebted to you for, young man."

"There's no obligation at all," Dr. Hall protested, as he had protested at least ten times during the past ten days. "I ask you to forget it, sir, and say no more. Why," he hurried on, bending to look into the major's face, "do you know what they're saying down-town about me, Major? They say I was so eager to get a patient I fanned the bullets off like flies that day."

"The devil they do! Let me hear one of the scoundrels as much as intimate—"

"Pretty good joke on a new doctor, don't you think?" appealing to Mrs. Cottrell, whose appreciation of the town's humor was no less apparent than the major's.

"No, I do not, Dr. Hall," she replied indignantly. "It's the friends and supporters of that old quack Ross, and nobody else."

"There's a scoundrel who has imposed on this community too long," Major Cottrell declared hotly. "I'm going to have Elizabeth—Elizabeth! 'Lisbeth, honey! Where is that girl?"

"Co-o-oming, pop," an indistinct voice replied from a far-off portion of the house.

"Combing, rather, I think she means," Mrs. Cottrell said, laughing. "She sounds like a mouthful of hairpins. What do you want her for, William?"

"I want her to—Elizabeth," as the young lady suddenly flung open the door that led into the mysteries of the house beyond the major's room, stopping on seeing the doctor, but catching herself instantly in her well-poised