many times already in the short two weeks he had known her, the peculiar, gipsy-like beauty of her face. It was a beauty of which she herself, he had occasion to believe, was absolutely unconscious, and in this he was right.
Charlotte disliked her dark skin, despised her black curls, and considered her vivid colouring a most undesirable inheritance. She admired intensely Celia's blonde loveliness, and lost no chance of privately comparing herself with her sister, to Celia's infinite advantage.
"Doctor Churchill," she said, as he approached her, hat in hand, "I was very rude to you just now. I am--sorry."
She held out her hand. Doctor Churchill took it. Charlotte's thick black lashes swept her cheek, and she did not see the look, half-laughing, half-sympathetic, which rested on her downcast face.
"It's all right," said Doctor Churchill's low, clear voice. "Don't think I fail to understand what it means for the cares of a household like this to descend upon a girl's shoulders. But I want you to know that I--that they are all immensely pleased with the pluck you are showing. I have seen your sister's lunch tray several times since I have been coming here; it was perfect."
"I burned her toast just this morning," said Charlotte, quickly. "And poached the egg too hard. Lanse says the coffee is better, but--oh, no matter--I'm just discouraged this morning, I--shall learn something some time, perhaps, but----" She turned away impulsively. Doctor Churchill followed her a step or two.
"See here, Miss Charlotte," he said, "how many times have you been out of the house since your sister was hurt?"
"Not at all," owned Charlotte, "except evenings, after everything is done. Then I steal out and run round and round the house in the moonlight, just running it off, you know--or maybe you don't know."
"Yes, I do. Will you do something now if I ask you to very humbly?"
Charlotte looked at him doubtfully. "If you mean go for a walk--which is what doctors always mean, I believe--I haven't time."
Doctor Churchill looked at his watch. "It is half past ten. Is that chicken for luncheon?"
"No, for supper--or dinner--I don't know just what it is we have at night now. I simply began to get it ready this morning because I hadn't the least idea in the world how long it takes to cook a chicken." She was smiling a little at the absurdity of her own words.
"And you didn't want to ask your sister?"
"I meant to surprise her."
"Well, of one thing I am fairly confident," said Doctor Churchill, with gravity. "If you take a run down as far as the old bridge and back, there will still be time to see to the chicken. What is more, by the time you get back, all big obstacles will look like little ones to you. Go, please. I am to be in the office for the next hour, and if the house catches fire I will run over and put it out. I could even undertake to steal in the back door and put coal on the kitchen fire, if it is necessary."
"It won't be."
"Then will you go?"
"Perhaps--to humour you," promised Charlotte.
"Thank you! And remember, please, Miss Charlotte, if you are to do justice to yourself and to your family, you must not plod all the time. Plan to get away every day for an hour or two. Go to see your friends--anything--but don't cultivate 'house nerves' at eighteen."
"I'm older than that," said Charlotte, as she watched him go down the steps. He turned, surprised. "But I shall not tell you how much," said she, and closed the door.
Doctor Churchill went straight through his small bachelor house to the kitchen. Here a tall, thin woman, with sharp eyes and kindly mouth, was energetically kneading bread.
"Mrs. Fields," said he, "I wish you would find it necessary to-morrow morning to run in at that door over there"--he indicated the little back porch of the Birch house--"and borrow something."
Mrs. Fields eyed him as if she thought he had taken leave of his senses. "Me--borrow?" she said. "Doctor Andrew--are you----"
"No, I'm not crazy," the doctor assured her, smiling. "I know it's tremendously against your principles, but never mind the principles, for once--since by ignoring them you can do a kindness. Run in and borrow a cup of sugar or something, and get acquainted."
"Who with? That curly-haired girl with the red cheeks? She don't want my acquaintance."
"She would be immensely grateful for it if it came about naturally. Take over some of your jelly for Miss Birch, if that way suits you better, but get to know Miss Charlotte, and show her a few things about cookery. She's trying to do all the work for the whole family, and she knows very little about it."
"I suspected as much. You haven't told me about 'em, and of course, being a doctor's housekeeper, I'm too well trained to ask."
The doctor smiled, for Mrs. Fields had been housekeeper in his mother's family in the days of his boyhood, and she felt it her right to tell him, now and then, what she thought. She was immensely proud of her own ability to hold her tongue and her curiosity in check.
"So I know only what I've seen. You told me the oldest girl had broke her knee, and that's all you've said. But I see this girl a-hanging dish-towels, and opening the kitchen door to let out the smoke each time she's burned up a batch of something, and I guessed she wasn't what you might call a graduate of one of those cooking-schools."
"You must be a bit tactful," warned the doctor. "The young lady is a trifle sensitive, as is natural, over her inefficiency, but she's very anxious to learn, and there's nobody to teach her. She is too independent to go to the other neighbours, but I've an idea you could be a friend to her."
"She looks pretty notional," Mrs. Fields said, doubtfully. "Shakes out her dust-cloth with her chin in the air----"
"To avoid the dust."
"And pulls down the shades the minute the lamp is lighted----"
"So do you."
"I saw her lock the kitchen door in the face of that Mis' Carter the other day, when she caught sight of her coming up the walk."
"See here, Fieldsy, you've been spying on your neighbours," said Doctor Churchill severely. "You despise that sort of thing yourself, so you mustn't yield to it. Go over and be neighbourly, as nobody knows how better than yourself, but don't judge people by their chins or their curls."
He gave her angular shoulder an affectionate pat, looked straight into her sharp eyes for a moment, until they softened perceptibly, said, "You're all right, you know,"--and went whistling away.
"That's just like your impudence, Andy Churchill," said Mrs. Hepsibah Fields to herself, as she laid her smooth loaves of bread-dough into their tins and proceeded energetically to scrape the board. "You always did have a way with you, wheedling folks into doing what they didn't want to just to please you. Now I've got to go meddling in other people's business and getting snubbed, most likely, just because you're trying to combine friendship and doctoring."
But Mrs. Fields, when her work was done, went to look up her best jelly, as Doctor Churchill had known she would do. And twenty-four hours had not gone by before she had made friends with Charlotte Birch.
It was not hard to make friends
