"
North turned a little wearily away. "Good night," she said
suddenly, extending her hand, with a gentler smile of lip and eye
than he had ever before noticed, "good night--take good care of
Dad."
The doctor and North rode together some moments in silence. North
had another fact presented to him, i. e. that he was going a-
visiting, and that he had virtually abandoned his former life; also
that it would be profanation to think of his sacred woe in the
house of a stranger.
"I dare say," said the doctor, suddenly, "you are not familiar with
the type of woman Miss Bessy presents so perfectly. Your life has
been spent among the conventional class."
North froze instantly at what seemed to be a probing of his secret.
Disregarding the last suggestion, he made answer simply and
truthfully that he had never met any Western girl like Bessy.
"That's your bad luck," said the doctor. "You think her coarse and
illiterate?"
Mr. North had been so much struck with her kindness that really he
had not thought of it.
"That's not so," said the doctor, curtly; "although even if you
told her so she would not think any the less of you--nor of
herself.
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