“I always expected,” he went on, in a more quiet way, “to be able to come home and tell my mother about my first triumphs.  She would have been so proud and happy over the smallest thing.  Her father was a distinguished surgeon—­Marchmont of Baltimore.  He died only four years ago—­his books are an authority on certain subjects.  My other grandfather was Dr. Andrew Churchill of Glasgow—­an old-school physician and a good one.  So you see I come honestly by my love for it all.  And mother—­how we used to talk it all over—­”

He stopped abruptly, with a tightening of the lips, and stood staring off over the frozen fields, his eyes growing sombre.  Charlotte’s own eyes fell; her heart beat fast with sympathy.  She laid the lightest of touches on his arm.

“I know,” she said, softly.  “Fieldsy told me—­a little bit.  I’m so sorry.”

He drew a long breath and looked down at her, his eyes searching her face.  “You are a little comrade,” he said, and his voice was low and moved.  Then with a quick motion he seized her hands again and they were off, back down the river.  Not so fast as before, and silently, the two skaters covered the miles, and only as they came within sight of the crowd of people at the beginning of the course did Doctor Churchill speak.

“This has been a fine hour, hasn’t it?” he said.  “Your face looks as if you had lost all the puckers.  Have you?”

“Indeed I have!  Haven’t you?”

“It has done me a world of good.  I was wrought up to a high pitch—­now I’m cool again.  I have to go back to the hospital as soon as supper is over.  I shall stay all night.”

“When you get back,” said Charlotte, “will you telephone me how the case is doing?”

“May I?” he answered, eagerly.

“Of course you may.  I shall be anxious till I know.”

“I have no business to add one smallest item of anxiety to your list of worries,” he admitted.  “But it seems so good to me to have somebody care, just now.  Fieldsy’s a dear soul—­I couldn’t get on without her, but—­Never mind, that’s enough of Andrew Churchill for one afternoon.  Shall we make a big spurt to the finish?  Let’s show them what skating is—­no little cutting of geometrical spider-webs in a forty-foot square!”

They drew in with swift, graceful strokes, threaded their course through the crowd of skaters, and were soon on their way home.  Captain Rayburn and Celia passed them, called back that it was a great day for invalids and children, and reached home just in time for the doctor to carry Celia into the little brick house.  Charlotte ran to summon her three brothers, for it was after six o’clock.

Never had an oyster stew such enthusiastic praise.  Not an appetite was lacking, not a spoon flagged.  Mrs. Fields, moved to lavish hospitality, in which she was upheld by the doctor, produced a chicken pie, which had been originally intended for his dinner alone, and which she had at first designed, when she proposed the oysters, to keep over until the morrow.  This was flanked by various dishes, impromptu but delectable, and followed by a round of winter fruit and spongecake—­the latter the pride of the housekeeper’s heart, and dear to her master from old association.