"It's almost as good as new!" cried Araminta, gleefully. She was clad in a sombre calico Mother Hubbard, of Miss Mehitable's painstaking manufacture, and hopping back and forth on the bare floor of her room at Miss Evelina's.
"Yes," answered Doctor Ralph, "I think it's quite as good as new." He was filled with professional pride at the satisfactory outcome of his first case, and yet was not at all pleased with the idea of Araminta's returning to Miss Mehitable's, as, perforce, she soon must do.
"Don't walk any more just now," he said "Come here and sit down. I want to talk to you."
Araminta obeyed him unquestioningly. He settled her comfortably in the haircloth easy-chair and drew his own chair closer. There was a pause, then she looked up at him, smiling with childish wistfulness.
"Are you sorry it's well?" he asked.
"I--I think I am," she answered, shyly, the deep crimson dyeing her face.
"I can't see you any more, you know," said Ralph, watching her intently.
The sweet face saddened in an instant and Araminta tapped her foot restlessly upon the floor. "Perhaps," she returned, slowly, "Aunt Hitty will be taken sick. Oh, I do hope she will!"
"You miserable little sinner," laughed Ralph, "do you suppose for a moment that Aunt Hitty would send for me if she were ill? Why, I believe she'd die first!"
"Maybe Mr. Thorpe might be taken sick," suggested Araminta, hopefully. "He's old, and sometimes I think he isn't very strong."
"He'd insist on having my father. You know they're old friends."
"Mr. Thorpe is old and your father is old," corrected Araminta, precisely, "but they haven't been friends long. Aunt Hitty says you must always say what you mean."
"That is what I meant. Each is old and both are friends. See?"
"It must be nice to be men," sighed Araminta, "and have friends. I've never had anybody but Aunt Hitty--and you," she added, in a lower tone, "'No money, no friends, nothing but relatives,'" quoted Ralph, cynically. "It's hard lines, little maid--hard lines." He walked back and forth across the small room, his hands clasped behind his back--a favourite attitude, Araminta had noted, during the month of her illness.
He pictured his probable reception should he venture to call upon her. Personally, as it was, he stood none too high in the favour of the dragon, as he was wont to term Miss Mehitable in his unflattering thoughts. Moreover, he was a man, which counted heavily against him. Since he had taken up his father's practice, he had heard a great deal about Miss Mehitable's view of marriage, and her determination to shield Araminta from such an unhappy fate.