The social authority of such a person as Mrs. Gerrish was not the only
change that bewildered Annie, and the effort to extend her relations with
the village people was one from which she shrank till her consciousness had
more perfectly adjusted itself to the new conditions. Meanwhile Dr. Morrell
came to call the night after their tea at the Putneys', and he fell into
the habit of coming several nights in the week, and staying late. Sometimes
he was sent for at her house by sick people, and he must have left word at
his office where he was to be found.

He had spent part of his student life in Europe, and he looked back to his
travel there with a fondness that the Old World inspires less and less in
Americans. This, with his derivation from one of the unliterary Boston
suburbs, and his unambitious residence in a place like Hatboro', gave her
a sense of provinciality in him. On his part, he apparently found it droll
that a woman of her acquaintance with a larger life should be willing
to live in Hatboro' at all, and he seemed incredulous about her staying
after summer was over. She felt that she mystified him, and sometimes she
felt the pursuit of a curiosity which was a little too like a psychical
diagnosis. He had a way of sitting beside her table and playing with her
paper-cutter, while he submitted with a quizzical smile to her endeavours
to turn him to account. She did not mind his laughing at her eagerness (a
woman is willing enough to join a man in making fun of her femininity if
she believes that he respects her), and she tried to make him talk about
Hatboro', and tell her how she could be of use among the working people.
She would have liked very much to know whether he gave his medical service
gratis among them, and whether he found it a pleasure and a privilege to do
so. There was one moment when she would have liked to ask him to let her be
at the charges of his more indigent patients, but with the words behind her
lips she perceived that it would not do. At the best, it would be taking
his opportunity from him and making it hers. She began to see that one
ought to have a conscience about doing good.