“I brought Anna Belle,” she said doubtfully, “but I can leave her under the stairs if there isn’t room.”

“Anna Belle under the stairs on a morning like this!  And in such a toilet?  Talk about error!” The doctor’s tone was tragic as he lifted the happy child into the buggy.

Mrs. Evringham nodded a reply to their smiling farewells as Hector sprang forward, and she looked after them in some perplexity.

“Why should he take the trouble?” she reflected.  “It would have been such a splendid morning for them to have gone riding if he had this leisure.  Of course it must have been just one of his indirect and lovely ways of trying to please Eloise.”

Just as she was solacing herself with the latter reflection, her daughter stepped out on the piazza, a little black book in her hand.

“Warm enough to sit out, isn’t it?” she remarked.

Her mother looked at her critically.  She had not seen this care-free look on her child’s face since Lawrence died.

“Why didn’t you come out a little sooner?”

“I wasn’t presentable.  How delicious the air is!”

“Yes.  Let us sit here and finish that novel.”

“All right.”

“What have you there?”

“Mrs. Eddy’s book,—­’Science and Health.’”

Mrs. Evringham made a grimace.  “I read part of it once.  That was enough for me.  Think of the price they charge for it, too.  Think of pretending it is such a good thing for everybody to have, and then putting a price on it that prohibits the average pocketbook.”  Eloise’s smile annoyed her mother.  “Weren’t you with me the day Nat Bonnell’s mother said so much about it?”

“How foolish she was not to try it,” said Eloise.  “Such a hopeless, monotonous invalid.”

“Well, some of her friends worked hard enough to induce her to, but when she found out the mercenary side of it, she saw at once that it couldn’t be trustworthy.”

“I suppose even Christian Scientists must have a roof and food and clothes,” returned Eloise coolly; “but I’ve thought a good deal the last few days about the criticisms I’ve heard on the price of the book.  The fuss over that three dollars is certainly very funny, when the average pocketbook goes to the theatre sometimes, has flowers for its entertainments, and rejoices to find lace reduced from a dollar and a quarter to ninety-five cents a yard for its gowns.  It eagerly hoards and spends three dollars for some passing pleasure or effect, but winces and ponders over paying the same sum for a book that will last a lifetime, and which, if it is worth anything, furnishes the key to every problem in life.”

“But why isn’t it as cheap as the Bible if it is so beneficial?”