The Hidden Hand

As usual, he looked up with a smile to welcome her as she entered; but her downcast eyes and serious face made him uneasy, and he hastened to inquire if she was not well, or if anything had happened to make her anxious, and at the same time he placed a chair and made her sit in it.

"Yes, I am troubled, doctor, about a subject that I scarcely know how to break to you," she said, in some considerable embarrassment.

"Mrs. Rocke, you know I am your friend, anxious to serve you! Trust in me, and speak out!"

"Well, sir," said Marah, beginning to roll up the corner of her apron, in her embarrassment, "I should not presume to interfere, but you do not see; gentlemen, perhaps, seldom do until it is too late." She paused, and the good doctor turned his head about, listening first with one ear and then with the other, as if he thought by attentive hearing he might come to understand her incomprehensible words.

"Miss Clara has the misfortune to be without a mother, or an aunt, or any lady relative----"

"Oh, yes, I know it, my dear madam; but then I am sure you conscientiously try to fill the place of a matronly friend and adviser to my daughter," said the doctor, striving after light.

"Yes, sir, and it is in view of my duties in this relation that I say--I and Traverse ought to go away."

"You and Traverse go away! My good little woman, you ought to be more cautious how you shock a man at my time of life--fifty is a very apoplectic age to a full-blooded man, Mrs. Rocke! But now that I have got over the shock, tell me why you fancy that you and Traverse ought to go away?"

"Sir, my son is a well-meaning boy----"

"A high-spirited, noble-hearted lad!" put in the doctor. "I have never seen a better!"

"But granting all that to be what I hope and believe it is--true, still, Traverse Rocke is not a proper or desirable daily associate for Miss Day."

"Why?" curtly inquired the doctor.

"If Miss Clara's mother were living, sir, she would probably tell you that young ladies should never associate with any except their equals of the opposite sex," said Marah Rocke.

"Clara's dear mother, were she on earth, would understand and sympathize with me, and esteem your Traverse as I do, Mrs. Rocke," said the doctor, with moist eyes and a tremulous voice.