“I cannot see that the world changes much.  I often wish that I could, though surely not in this way,” said the lame woman from her seat by the window, as the doctor rose to go away.  “I find my days piteously alike, and you do not know what a pleasure this talk has been.  It satisfies my hungry mind and gives me a great deal to think of; you would not believe what an appetite I had.  Oh, don’t think I need any excuses, it is a great pleasure to see you drive in and out of the gate, and I like to see your lamp coming into the study, and to know that you are there and fond of me.  But winter looked very long and life very short before you came in this afternoon.  I suppose you have had enough of society for one day, so I shall not tell you what I mean to have for tea, but next Sunday night I shall expect you to come and bring your ward.  Will you please ring, so that Martha will bring the lights?  I should like to send Nan a nice letter to read which came yesterday from my little grand-daughter in Rome.  I shall be so glad when they are all at home again.  She is about Nan’s age, you know; I must see to it that they make friends with each other.  Don’t put me on a dusty top shelf again and forget me for five or six weeks,” laughed the hostess, as her guest protested and lingered a minute still before he opened the door.

“You won’t say anything of my confidences?” at which Mrs. Graham shakes her head with satisfactory gravity, though if Doctor Leslie had known she was inwardly much amused, and assured herself directly that she hoped to hear no more of such plans; how could he tell that the girl herself would agree to them, and whether Oldfields itself would favor Nan as his own successor and its medical adviser?  But John Leslie was a wise, far-seeing man, with a great power of holding to his projects.  He really must be kept to his promise of a weekly visit; she was of some use in the world after all, so long as these unprotected neighbors were in it, and at any rate she had gained her point about the poor child’s clothes.

As for the doctor, he found the outer world much obscured by the storm, and hoped that nobody would need his services that night, as he went stumbling home though the damp and clogging snow underfoot.  He felt a strange pleasure in the sight of a small, round head at the front study window between the glass and the curtain, and Nan came to open the door for him, while Marilla, whose unwonted Sunday afternoon leisure seemed to have been devoted to fragrant experiments in cookery, called in pleased tones from the dining-room that she had begun to be afraid he was going to stay out to supper.  It was somehow much more homelike than it used to be, the doctor told himself, as he pushed his feet into the slippers which had been waiting before the fire until they were in danger of being scorched.  And before Marilla had announced with considerable ceremony that tea was upon the table, he had assured himself that it had been a very pleasant hour or two at Mrs. Graham’s, and it was the best thing in the world for both of them to see something of each other.  For the little girl’s sake he must try to keep out of ruts, and must get hold of somebody outside his own little world.