here, Cally, three doors from where we used to live down on Third
Street--remember? Well, Dr. Vivian lived right there till he was sixteen
or seventeen--"
"Why do you call him Dr. Vivian?"
"Well, that's what he is, you see. He's a doctor--medical man."
"He doesn't look in the least like a medical man to me," said Carlisle,
as if that ought to settle something.
"Oh! You know him, then?"
"I have spoken to him," replied Carlisle, her gaze full on Hen's face.
"You see a great deal of him, I suppose?"
"No, we don't," said Hen, with an odd air, suggestive of regret. "He
keeps so terribly busy. Besides being sort of a missionary doctor, he's
always working on dozens of grand schemes of one sort or another. His
latest is to raise about a million dollars and buy the Dabney House for
a Settlement! How's that for a tall one? He just mentioned it to me this
morning, _en passant_, and says I must help him raise the million--"
"I suppose you didn't know that one of his grand schemes was to write a
terrible article in the paper attacking papa and the Works?"
"Oh!" said Hen, plucking a thread from her old black skirt. "Oh, that
letter in the 'Post,' long ago, you mean? Yes, I--knew about that; I
wanted to speak to you about it at the time. Did you read it, Cally?"
"I glanced at it," said Cally, shortly.
Full of the interest of thundering feet as the week had been since
Willie and mamma had given her the connecting link, Carlisle had in fact
made a point of getting hold of a copy of the old paper containing that
particular piece. Not being at all familiar with Works and newspapers,
she had found the process involved with considerable perplexity and
trouble, but she had felt amply rewarded in the end. The piece came to
her hand like a weapon, against any possible remeeting with its
remembered author.
Now she regarded Hen with steadily rising annoyance.
"What was your friend's idea in writing such outrageous stuff, do you
know? Is he really crazy, as they say, or is he just an ordinary
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