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these feelings. Helen and Marion wanted were get away. Well, they weren't the only ones; she, too wanted to get away. Oh yes, she did, even more'tha" they, but for different reasons. She had made arrane ments to meet Teddy on Saturday and should his manner be anything like her sisters had prediced she would in ndg y repulse him. Oh no! And it woudn' only be to get away from here, but because she liked him. Did she love him? Yes. Yes, she thought disshe loved hi too, and she would give him an indiciition of it on Saturday. Oh yes, she would. She woud.
    Ihurch bells had been ringing for the past halfeopl were passing the surgery window on ay lo the church, many of them intending just d ouside to see the Steel girls emerge after Mible wedding. It was quite an event, two sising married together, with the youngest sister s bridesmaid.
    n this bells had stopped ringing, John lay back revolving leather chair and closed his eyes But ven then he could visualise it all: Helen Iking slowly up the aisle now on the left arm athcr. with Marion on his right. The grooms iting, standing beyond the first pew, lancd at the clock. It was half-past ten in the I. On an ordinary day there would still be paailing in the other room, but today there was t on. He knew it was Ethel Hewitt, for her stick bar But beating its usual tattoo of impatience on the floor.
    Bforcd himself up from his chair and opened the "Good morning, Ethel. Will you come in?"'
    pt before time an' all Doctor, and the place empty. As she hobbled past him and took a seat bar one side of the desk, she added, "It's a wonder you'Knowledge not along there with the rest of the daft
    'uns. They 1 don't know what's coing to them, they don't. A bed of roses, they think. But just you wait, they'll get their
    eyes opened. Rich and poor alike, it's all the same." " 'allyou're a born pessimist, Ethel." J "I'm not from there Doctor. What makes you say 1 that? I was taken for a Lancastrian once, but I'm Dur- bar hana born and bred." bar Another time he would have laughed, but not to be
    day. "How's your leg?"' he said. :
    "Well, I've still got it on," she said.
    "That's fortunate." , "Why aren't you along there?"' bar "Well now, I ask you, if I was along there how could I see to you. And anyway Doctor Comwallis had to be there; he brought those two young ladies * into the world and-"
    "Aye," she interrupted him, "and he's going to see tilde them out of it, but in a different way,
    'cos they're bar going into another world. You know that, don't you? But then you don't because you've never been mar- 3 ried.. dish you? I have three times. You can't tell e " anything about marriage. If I had that kind of brain I :
    coud write a story."
    'Without... that kind of brain, you could still write i a story, Ethel. Anyway, come on, let me have a loo
    at your leg.".....
    ifteen minutes later he escorted Ethel to the surgery door with the usual warning. "Keep off it as uch as you can. Rest it; if not you're in for trouble I've told you." i
    and I've heard you. What d'you expect me around on one leg, with eight grandbaims at a times of the day and sometimes the n a lucky woman, you know."
    5" was about to step into the street she paused, "
    were' head round towards him and her thin wrin-i -- took on a smile as she said, 'Aye, I know
    5So in a way, 'cos to speak plainly, all the
    1"" (ne or two dg mem etter man meletter isn't that I'm soft with them either. ii'iVery backsides, then end up makin' them tafF hear her still chuckling as she hobbled (T- empty street that led to the church.
    So'" Comwallis was in the habit of iterating
    "i one time, there hadn't been a house or cottage
    ?"'" " i the church and this his family home, that
    disless-than was back for almost three hundred years. When tTi first heard this remark he had laughingly was "Well, it's time it was seen to here and there,
    beity think?"' but afterwards knew he had made
    - mistake when his superior had no conversaSi him other than about medical