Mrs. Thacher’s errand had not yet been told, though she fumbled in her pocket and walked to the open window to look for the neighbor’s wagon by which she was to find conveyance home, before she ventured to say anything more.  “I don’t know’s my time’ll come for some years yet,” she said at length, falteringly, “but I have had it borne in upon my mind a good many ways this summer that I ain’t going to stay here a gre’t while.  I’ve been troubled considerable by the same complaints that carried my mother off, and I’m built just like her.  I don’t feel no concern for myself, but it’s goin’ to leave the child without anybody of her own to look to.  There’s plenty will befriend her just so long as she’s got means, and the old farm will sell for something besides what she’s got already, but that ain’t everything, and I can’t seem to make up my mind to havin’ of her boarded about.  If ’t was so your wife had lived I should know what I’d go down on my knees to her to do, but I can’t ask it of you to be burdened with a young child a-growin’ up.”

The doctor listened patiently, though just before this he had risen and begun to fill a small bottle at the closet shelves, which were stocked close to their perilous edges with various drugs.  Without turning to look at his patient he said, “I wish you would take five or six drops of this three times a day, and let me see you again within a week or two.”  And while the troubled woman turned to look at him with half-surprise, he added, “Don’t give yourself another thought about little Nan.  If anything should happen to you, I shall be glad to bring her here, and to take care of her as if she were my own.  I always have liked her, and it will be as good for me as for her.  I would not promise it for any other child, but if you had not spoken to-day, I should have found a way to arrange with you the first chance that came.  But I’m getting to be an old fellow myself,” he laughed.  “I suppose if I get through first you will be friendly to Marilla?” and Mrs. Thacher let a faint sunbeam of a smile shine out from the depths of the handkerchief with which she was trying to stop a great shower of tears.  Marilla was not without her little vanities, and being thought youthful was one of the chief desires of her heart.

So Mrs. Thacher went away lighter hearted than she came.  She asked the price of the vial of medicine, and was answered that they would talk about that another time; then there was a little sober joking about certain patients who never paid their doctor’s bills at all because of a superstition that they would immediately require his aid again.  Dr. Leslie stood in his study doorway and watched her drive down the street with Martin Dyer.  It seemed to him only a year or two since both the man and woman had been strong and vigorous; now they both looked shrunken, and there was a wornness and feebleness about the bodies which had done such good service.  “Come and go,” said the doctor to himself, “one generation