“I thought you loved Ann.”

“Well, I don’t.  She thinks she’s smart!”

“Ann, too?  Smartness must be epidemic.”

“It’s all on account of the doctor,” gloomily.  “They can’t get over having him boarding at their place.  I told Ann that my own father was a doctor, but she said dead ones didn’t count.  Then I told her that my mother didn’t have to keep boarders anyway.”

“That was a naughty, snobbish thing to say.  I’m ashamed of you!”

“What’s ’snobbish’?”

“What you said was snobbish.  Think it over and find out.”

Jane was silent, apparently thinking it over.  The fat pup, tired with unwonted mental exertions, curled up and went to sleep.  Esther returned to her dreams.  Then, into the warm hush of the late afternoon came the quick panting of a motor car.

“There he is!” cried Jane excitedly.  “Let’s both run down to the gate to see him.”

“Jane!” Esther’s cheeks were the colour of her ripest berry.  “Jane, come here!  I forbid you—­Jane!”

“He’s stopping anyway.  He’ll be coming in.  You had better take off that apron.—­Oh, look!  Some one’s with him.  Why,” with some disappointment, “it’s mother!  He is letting her out.  I don’t believe he is coming in at all—­let go!  Esther, you pig, let me go!”

She wriggled out of her sister’s firm hold but not before the motor had started again; when she reached the gate it was out of sight.

Mrs. Coombe surveyed her daughter coldly.  “You are a very ill-mannered child,” she said, and putting her aside walked slowly up the path and around the house to where Esther sat on the back porch.

“Where are the daisies?” asked Esther, looking up from her berries.

“The daisies?” vaguely.  “Good gracious!  I forgot all about the daisies.”

“Didn’t you get any?”

“Heaps, but the fact is I didn’t bring them home.  I felt so tired.  I don’t know how I should have managed to get home myself if Dr. Callandar hadn’t picked me up.”

“Dr. Callandar?” Esther’s voice was mildly questioning.

“Yes, why not?”

“I thought you had not met him.”

“Neither I had—­at least I hadn’t met him for a good many years.”  Mary gave a little excited laugh.  “But that’s the funny part of it—­he is an old friend.”

Esther looked up with her characteristic widening of the eyes.  The news was genuinely surprising.  And how agitated her mother seemed!

“It is really quite a remarkable coincidence,” went on Mary nervously.  “I was so surprised, startled indeed.  Although it’s pleasant, of course, to meet an old schoolmate.”

“You and Doctor Callandar schoolmates?” The eyes were very wide now.

Mary grew more and more confused.

“Yes—­that is, not exactly.  I mean his name wasn’t Callandar then.  His name was Chedridge.  Did you never hear me speak of Harry Chedridge?”