"Well,
I'll be--" he said, half to himself.
Unable to stand, Juliet sat down upon the well-worn door-step and he sat
down beside her. "It's all my fault," she said, solemnly. "Romie told me
this morning that I wasn't a lady, and he wanted me to be like her. He
said I was a tomboy, and I told him that if I was, he'd done it himself,
and he got mad and went away, and now--"
Juliet burst into tears, but she had no handkerchief, so Doctor Jack
gave her his.
"'Tears, idle tears,'" he quoted lightly. "I say, kid, don't take it so
hard."
"I--I'm not a lady," she sobbed.
"You are," he assured her. "You're the finest little lady I know."
"Don't--don't," she sobbed. "Don't make fun of me. Romie said that you
were--laughing at me--yesterday-because I was--a--a tomboy!"
"Kid," he said, softly, almost unmanned by a sudden tenderness quite
foreign to his experience. "Oh, my dear little girl, won't you look at
me?"
The tone was wholly new to Juliet--she did not know that any man could
be so tender, so beautifully kind. "It's because he's a doctor," she
thought. "He's used to seeing people when they don't feel right.
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