"Cold? I haven't any cold! You can't get a job here. Sit down and give
me some advice. Hand me a match first; this ragamuffin Danny has gone
to sleep with his head on my foot, and I can't budge."
The doctor produced the match; "I'll advise you not to go out in such
weather. Promise me you won't go out to-morrow."
"To-morrow? Right after breakfast, sir! To make calls on the people
I've neglected. Willy, how can I find a home for an orphan child? A
parson up in the mountains has asked me to see if I can place a little
seven-year-old boy. The child's sister who took care of him has just
died. Do you know anybody who might take him?"
"Well," said Willy King, "there's Mrs. Richie."
Dr. Lavendar looked at him over his spectacles. "Mrs. Frederick
Richie?--though I understand she calls herself Mrs. Helena Richie. I
don't like a young female to use her own name, William, even if she is
a widow! Still, she may be a nice woman I suppose. Do you think a
little boy would have a good home with her?"
"Well," the doctor demurred, "of course, we know very little about
her. She has only been here six months. But I should think she was
just the person to take him. She is mighty good-looking, isn't she?"
"Yes," Dr. Lavendar said, "she is. And other things being equal I
prefer a good-looking woman. But I don't know that her looks are a
guarantee that she can train up a child in the way he should go. Can't
you think of anybody else?"
"I don't see why you don't like Mrs. Richie?" "I never said I didn't
like her," protested Dr. Lavendar; "but she's a widow."
"Unless she murdered the late Richie, that's not against her."
"Widows don't always stay widows, Willy."
"I don't believe she's the marrying kind," William said. "I have a
sort of feeling that the deceased Richie was not the kind of husband
who receives the compliment of a successor--"
"Hold on; you're mixing things up! It's the bad husband and the good
wife that get compliments of that kind."
William laughed as he was expected to, but he stuck to his opinion
that Mrs. Richie had had enough of husbands. "And anyway, she's
devoted to her brother--though he doesn't come to see her very
often."
"There's another point," objected Dr. Lavendar; "what kind of a man is
this Mr. Pryor? Danny growled at him once, which prejudiced me against
him."