“Would you mind it very much?” Larry leaned forward.  His voice was low, solicitous.  Tony, listening, resented it a little.  She didn’t see why Larry had to keep his good manners for somebody outside the family.  He might have spoken a little more politely to herself, she thought.  She had only been trying to be nice to Ruth.

“Not—­if you would take care of me and not let people talk to me too much,” Ruth answered the solicitous tone.

“I will,” promised Larry.  “You needn’t talk to a soul if you don’t want to.  I’ll ward ’em off.  And you can dance if you want to—­one dance anyway.”

“With me,” announced Ted complacently from the grass.  “My bid was in first.  Don’t you forget, Miss Peaseblossom.”  Ted had a multitude of pet names for Ruth.  They slipped off his tongue easily, as water falling over a cliff.

“No, with me,” said his brother shortly.

“Gee, I wish I were a doctor!  It gives you a hideous advantage.”

“But I haven’t anything to wear,” exclaimed Ruth, coming next to the really sole and only supreme woman question.

“We’ll fix that easy as easy,” said Tony, amicable again now.  “I’ve a darling blue organdy that will look sweet on you—­just the color of your eyes.  Don’t you worry a minute, honey.  Your fairy godmother will see to all that.  All I ask is that you won’t let that old ogre of an M.D. change his mind and say you can’t go.  It isn’t good for Larry to obey him so meekly.  He is getting to be a regular tyrant.”

A moment later Doctor Holiday joined the group, dropped on the bench beside Larry and was informed by Tony that Ruth was to go on an adventure down the Hill; to Sue Emerson’s dance in fact.

“Isn’t that great?” she demanded.

“Superb,” he teased.  Then he smiled approval at Ruth.  “Good idea, Larry,” he added to his nephew.  “Glad you thought of it.”

“I didn’t think of it.  Tony did.  You really approve?” The gray eyes were a little anxious.  Larry was by no means a know-it-all doctor, as his sister accused him.  He had too little rather than too much confidence in his own judgment in fact.

“I certainly do.  Go to it, little lady.  May be the best medicine in the world for you.”

“Now you are talking,” exulted Ted.  “That’s what Tony and I said and Larry wanted to execute us on the spot for daring to have an opinion at all.”

“Scare you much to think of it?” Doctor Holiday asked Ruth, prudently ignoring this last sally.

“A good deal,” sighed Ruth.  “But I’ll try not to be too much scared if Larry will go too and not let people ask questions.”

The young doctor had long since become Larry to Ruth.  It was too confusing talking about two Doctor Holidays.  Everybody in Dunbury said Larry or Doctor Larry or at most, respectfully, Doctor Laurence.

“I’ll let nobody talk to you but myself,” said Larry.

“There you are!” flashed Tony.  “You might just as well keep her penned up here in the yard.  You want to keep her all to yourself.”