“I feel as if Anna was sure of one good friend, whether I stay with her or not,” said the grandmother sorrowfully, as she drove toward home that Sunday noon with Jacob Dyer and his wife.  “I never saw the doctor so taken with a child before.  ’Twas a pity he had to lose his own, and his wife too; how many years ago was it?  I should think he’d be lonesome, though to be sure he isn’t in the house much.  Marilla Thomas keeps his house as clean as a button and she has been a good stand-by for him, but it always seemed sort o’ homesick there ever since the day I was to his wife’s funeral.  She made an awful sight o’ friends considering she was so little while in the place.  Well I’m glad I let Nanny wear her best dress; I set out not to, it looked so much like rain.”

Whatever Marilla Thomas’s other failings might have been, she certainly was kind that day to the doctor’s little guest.  It would have been a hard-hearted person indeed who did not enter somewhat into the spirit of the child’s delight.  In spite of its being the first time she had ever sat at any table but her grandmother’s, she was not awkward or uncomfortable, and was so hungry that she gave pleasure to her entertainers in that way if no other.  The doctor leaned back in his chair and waited while the second portion of pudding slowly disappeared, though Marilla could have told that he usually did not give half time enough to his dinner and was off like an arrow the first possible minute.  Before he took his often interrupted afternoon nap, he inquired for the damaged shoulder and requested a detailed account of the accident; and presently they were both laughing heartily at Nan’s disaster, for she owned that she had chased and treed a stray young squirrel, and that a mossy branch of one of the old apple-trees in the straggling orchard had failed to bear even so light a weight as hers.  Nan had come to the ground because she would not loose her hold of the squirrel, though he had slipped through her hands after all as she carried him towards home.  The guest was proud to become a patient, especially as the only remedy that was offered was a very comfortable handful of sugar-plums.  Nan had never owned so many at once, and in a transport of gratitude and affection she lifted her face to kiss so dear a benefactor.

Her eyes looked up into his, and her simple nature was so unconscious of the true dangers and perils of this world, that his very heart was touched with compassion, and he leagued himself with the child’s good angel to defend her against her enemies.

And Nan took fast hold of the doctor’s hand as they went to the study.  This was the only room in the house which she had seen before; and was so much larger and pleasanter than any she knew elsewhere that she took great delight in it.  It was a rough place now, the doctor thought, but always very comfortable, and he laid himself down on the great sofa with a book in his hand, though after a few minutes he grew sleepy and only opened his eyes once to see that Nan was perched in the largest chair with her small hands folded, and her feet very far from the floor.  “You may run out to see Marilla, or go about the house anywhere you like; or there are some picture-papers on the table,” the doctor said drowsily, and the visitor slipped down from her throne and went softly away.