The next afternoon, there were neither lectures nor clinics, and Phebe determined to go for a long walk.  It was early November, and the hush and the haze of Indian summer lay over the park, as she halted on the bridge and stood looking down into the river beneath.  Not a soul was in sight.  The noises of the city were hushed in the distance, and before her the broad reaches of the park stretched out and out under their mighty forest trees.  In a way, the rolling slopes, the broad lawns and the trees reminded her of The Savins.  She could imagine just how it looked at home, the green lawn heaped here and there with brown oak leaves, the golden glory of the hickories, the masses of late chrysanthemums, red and white and pink and yellow, filling every sheltered nook and corner, above it all, the soft November haze which is neither rosy nor purple nor gold, but blended from them all, yet quieter far than any one of them.

All of a sudden Phebe’s head went down upon her arms folded on the rail of the bridge and, secure in her solitude, she gave herself up to her woe.

“Miss McAlister?”

She started and pulled herself together abruptly.

“Are you in trouble?”

The voice was unknown, yet familiar, and she spun around to find herself face to face with Gifford Barrett.

“Where did you come from?” she asked, too much astonished at his appearing, too glad to look into a friendly pair of eyes to resent the sympathy written on his face.

“I came over here, for a few days, and I took the liberty of calling on you.  The people at the house told me you had spoken of coming out here, so I came on the chance of finding you.  But was something—?” He hesitated.

Phebe rubbed away her tears.

“Yes, something was,” she answered, with an attempt at her usual briskness.  “You caught me off my guard, Mr. Barrett.  The fact is, I am desperately homesick.”

“Then why don’t you go home?” he asked prosaically, for he had learned, even in his slight experience at Quantuck, that it was not wise to take a sentimental tone in addressing Phebe.

“I can’t.  I came down here for a year, and I must stick it out.”

“What’s the use?”

“Because I never do give in.  It would be babyish.  Besides, I am going to be a doctor.”

“I don’t see why.  It isn’t in your line.”

“I begin to think nothing is in my line,” Phebe said forlornly.

“What else have you tried?”

“Nothing; but—­I don’t care about many things.  I should like this, if it weren’t for the clinics and the students and such things, and if I could be a little nearer home.”

“When do you go home?”

“Christmas, if I live till then,” Phebe laughed; but her mirth sounded rather lugubrious.  Then she added half-involuntarily, “I wonder what you must think of me, Mr. Barrett.  I’m not generally given to this kind of a scene.”