“Rather fine, don’t you think?  Or is it just a madness of pride?  On second thought, I don’t believe that I have arrived at the stage when I can do without God.  H.”

He folded the letter, stamped and addressed it and placed it upon the table in the hall where Ann would find and post it.  Then, lighting a cigar, he sat down beside the open window and began to wonder how the momentous meeting with Esther could be best arranged.  Perhaps if he walked out to the schoolhouse and waited until lunch time?  No, it was Saturday morning and there was no school.  The obvious thing was to call at the house, but this, the doctor felt, was sure to be unsatisfactory.  Not only was there Jane to think of and Aunt Amy—­but there was also the as-yet-unknown Mrs. Coombe.  The visit would almost certainly end in a formal call upon the family.  He might perhaps send Bubble over with an invitation to go fishing.  No, that was too risky.  Esther might refuse to go fishing and that would be a bad omen.

In a sudden spasm of nervousness Callandar threw the half-burned cigar out of the window and, following it with his eyes, was not sorry to be distracted by the sight of Ann in her night-dress, crying under the pear tree.  Ann crying was an unusual sight, but Ann in a night-dress was almost unbelievable.  The doctor knew at once that something serious must have happened and went down to see.

The child looked up at his approach, all the natural impishness of her small face drowned in sorrow.  In her open hand she held the body of a tiny bird, all that was left of a fledgling which had tried its wings too soon.

“It toppled off and died,” said Ann.  “All its brothers and sisters flewed away.”

“Heartless things!” said Callandar, and then seeing that comfort was imperative he sat down beside the mourner and tried to do the proper thing.  He explained to her that the dead bird was only one of a nest-full and that the dew was wet and that she was getting green stains on her nightie.  He reminded her that birds’ lives, for all their seeming brightness, are full of danger and trouble.  Perhaps the baby bird was just as well out of it.  At least it would never know the lack of a worm in season, nor the bitterness of early snow.  This particular style of comfort he had found very effective in cases other than baby birds, but it didn’t work with Ann.

“I don’t care,” she sobbed, “it might have lived anyway.  It never had a chance to live.”

Living, just living, was with Ann clearly the great thing to be desired.

Callandar stopped comforting and took the child on his knee.

“I believe you’ve got the right idea, little Ann,” he said.  “It isn’t so much the sorrow that counts or the joy either, but just the living through it.  We’re bound to get somewhere if we keep on.  Don’t cry any more and we’ll bury the little bird all done up in nice white fluffy cotton.  As Mrs. Burns says when any one dies:  ’It’s such a comfort to have ’em put away proper.’  And then after a while you and Bubble might go fishing.”