Geoffrey Strong | Page 2

the house the Temple of Vesta."
"Day and night?"
"No, no! lights it at sunset every evening regularly. Sun dips, Vesta
lights her lamp. Pretty? I think so."
"Affecting, certainly!" said the young doctor. "And she has mourned
her lover ever since?"
The old doctor gave him a quaint look. "People don't mourn thirty
years," he said, "unless their minds are diseased. Women mourn longer
than men, of course, but ten years would be a long limit, even for a
woman. Memory, of course, may last as long as life--sacred and tender
memory,"--his voice dropped a little, and he passed his hand across his
forehead,--"but not mourning. Vesta is a little pensive, a little silent;
more habit than anything else now. A sweet woman; the sweetest--"
The old doctor seemed to forget his companion, and flicked the old

brown horse pensively, as they jogged along, saying no more.
The young doctor waited a little before he put his next question.
"The two ladies live alone always?"
"Yes--no!" said the old doctor, coming out of his reverie. "There's
Diploma Crotty, help, tyrant, governor-in-chief of the kitchen. Now
and then she thinks they'd better have a visitor, and tells them so; but
not very often, it upsets her kitchen. But here we are at the parsonage,
and I'll take you in."
The young doctor made his visit at the parsonage dutifully and
carefully. He meant to make a good impression wherever he went. It
was no such easy matter to take the place of the old doctor, who, after a
lifetime of faithful and loving work, had been ordered off for a year's
rest and travel; but the young doctor had plenty of courage, and meant
to do his best. He answered evasively the inquiry of the minister's wife
as to where he meant to board; and though he noted down carefully the
addresses she gave him of nice motherly women who would keep his
things in order, and have an eye to him in case he should be ailing, he
did not intend to trouble these good ladies if he could help himself.
"I want to live in that brick house!" he said to himself. "I'll have a try
for it, anyhow. The old ladies can't be insulted by my telling them they
have the best house in the village."
After dinner he went for a walk, and strolled along the pleasant shady
street. There were many good houses, for Elmerton was an old village.
Vessels had come into her harbour in bygone days, and substantial
merchant captains had built the comfortable, roomy mansions which
stretched their ample fronts under the drooping elms, while their back
windows looked out over the sea, breaking at the very foot of their
garden walls. But there was no house that compared, in the young
doctor's mind, with the Temple of Vesta. He was walking slowly past it,
admiring the delicate tracery on the white window-sills, when the door
opened, and a lady came out. The young doctor observed her as she
came down the steps; it was his habit to observe everything. The lady
was past sixty, tall and erect, and walked stiffly.
"Rheumatic!" said the young doctor, and ran over in his mind certain
remedies which he had found effective in rheumatism.
She was dressed in sober gray silk, made in the fashion of thirty years
before, and carried an ancient parasol with a deep silk fringe. As she

reached the sidewalk she dropped her handkerchief. Standing still a
moment, she regarded it with grave displeasure, then tried to take it up
on the point of her parasol. In an instant the young doctor had crossed
the street, picked up the handkerchief, and offered it to her with a bow
and a pleasant smile.
"I thank you, sir!" said Miss Phoebe Blyth. "You are extremely
obliging."
"Don't mention it, please!" said the young doctor. "It was a pleasure.
Have I the honour of speaking to Miss Blyth? I am Doctor Strong.
Doctor Stedman may have spoken to you of me."
"He has indeed done so!" said Miss Phoebe; and she held out her
silk-gloved hand with dignified cordiality. "I am glad to make your
acquaintance, sir. I shall hope to have the pleasure of welcoming you at
my house at an early date."
"Thank you! I shall be most happy. May I walk along with you, as we
seem to be going the same way? I have been admiring your house so
very much, Miss Blyth. It is the finest specimen of its kind I have ever
seen. How fine that tracery is over the windows; and how seldom you
see a fan so graceful as that! Should you object to my making a sketch
of it some day? I'm very much interested in Colonial