Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III HIS FIRST PATIENT Oh, the dainty, dainty maid to the borders of the brook Lingered down as lightly as the breeze; And the shy water-spiders quit their scurrying to look; And the happy water whispered to the trees. —C. G. D. Robekts. DR. GILBERT ALLEN, gold-medalist of the Toronto School of Medicine, and just home from a post-graduate course in London and Edinburgh, had his coat off, his sleeves rolled up, and was busy arranging bottles on the shelf of his tiny dispensary. He was whistling cheerily- It was young Dr. Allen's nature to be cheerful even under adverse circumstances, and this morning all his prospects were bright. For after years of spending money—and largely another man's money, too—he was at last on his feet. His college life had been a very happy one, it is true; so, also, had been the years since his graduation, the first two spent as house surgeon in a Toronto hospital, theHIS FIRST PATIENT last, and best of all, in the Old Land. They had given him breadth and experience; but though Gilbert was willing to concede that experience teaches, he was equally assured that she does not pay bills. Now he was a free man, and master of his profession. He used the last phrase modestly; he was ready and anxious to make the mastery more complete, and at the same time to win a name for himself and a home and a fortune for Rosalie. As he stacked the bottles noisily in their places he glanced around the little room, and wished he might turn a handspring, just to let off steam and be able to write to Harwood and the other fellows to say his office was big enough to admit of the feat. He wisely crushed the desire, for he recognized the fact that he was under surveillance. Just outside the windows stretched a little lawn, with a star-shaped flow...