The day after she had replaced the coarse horse-blanket with a soft down quilt, the doctor made one of his bi-weekly visits to her mother.
As he stood taking leave of Ruth on the veranda, he turned, with his foot on the last step, and looked up at her as if arrested by a sudden thought.
“Miss Levice,” said he, “I should like to give you a friendly scolding. May I?”
“Well, if I were you I should not indulge Bob’s love of luxury as you do. He positively refused to get up yesterday on account of the ‘soft feel,’ as he termed it, of that quilt. Now, you know, he must get up; he is able to, and in a week I wish to start him in to work again. Then he won’t be able to afford such ‘soft feels,’ and he will rebel. He has had enough coddling for his own good. I really think it is mistaken kindness on your part, Miss Levice.”
The girl was leaning lightly against one of the supporting columns. A playful smile parted her lips as she listened.
“Dr. Kemp,” she replied, “may I give you a little friendly scolding?”
“You have every right.” His tone was somewhat earnest, despite his smiling eyes. A man of thirty-five does not resent a friendly scolding from a winsome young girl.
“Well, don’t you think it is rather hard of you to deprive poor Bob of any pleasure to-day may bring, on the ground that to-morrow he may wish it too, and will not be able to have it?”
“As you put it, it does seem so; but I am pugnacious enough to wish you to see it as practically as I do. Put sentiment aside, and the only sensible thing to be done now is to prepare him for the hard, uncushioned facts of an active life.”
“Why? In the face of the inevitable, that is a time-wasting, useless question. Life is so; even if we find its underlying cause, the discovery will not alter the fact.”
“By its enabling us to turn our backs on the hard way and seek a softer.”
“You forget that strait-jacket to all inclination,--circumstance.”
“And are you not forgetting that friendly hands may help to remove the strait-jacket?”
Her lovely face looked very winning, filled with its kindly meaning.
“Thank you,” said he, raising his hat and forgetting to replace it as he spoke; “that is a gentle truth; some day we shall discuss this further. For the present, use your power in getting Bob upon his feet.”