The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (12.1897)

Far Above Rubies

By Netta Syrett

ld Dr. Hilcrest’s little house on the Bushberry Road, just

outside Crewford Village, had a new tenant, and Crew-
ford was shaken to its foundations with excitement and expecta-

All Crewford had so long been “led to the grave,” as Briggs
the town-crier somewhat unfortunately expressed it, by old Dr.
Hilcrest, and his spectacled nose and white beard had become such
indispensable features in the village, that the inhabitants were
thrown into a state of incredulous amazement at the news of his
projected retirement. Scarcely had they time to recover breath
from the astounding intelligence, before the newcomer was
actually upon them. “A boy, a mere boy, too!” as Miss
Saunders exclaimed to another maiden lady, her bosom friend.
“ Scarcely seven-and-twenty I should think. My dear Sophy, it
is hardly—delicate ! ”

Crewford, however, was not long in making the discovery
that the young doctor was an acquisition. The children of Mr.
Miles, the lawyer, who lived opposite Miss Saunders, and were
conveniently stricken with measles the very day of his arrival,
disobediently flattened their noses against the windows to watch
for his coming, and began to laugh before ever he shook his fist

tion.

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