CHAPTER XXIV,
WILLIE'S PLANS BEAR FRUIT.

HEN his studies were finished, Willie

returned to assist his father, for he had no

desire to settle in a great city with the ambition of

becoming a fashionable doctor getting large fees

and growing rich, He regarded the end of life as

being, in a large measure, just to take his share in
the general business,

By this time the reputation of the Prior’s Well
had spread on all sides, and the country people had
begun to visit the Leas, and stay for a week or ten
days to drink of the water. Indeed so many kept
coming and going at all hours through the garden,
that the MacMichaels at length found it very
troublesome, and had a small pipe laid to a little
stone trough built into the garden wall on the out-
side, so that whoever would might come and drink
with less trouble to all concerned.

But Willie had come home with a new idea in his’
head.

An old valetudinarian in the city, who knew
every spa in Europe, wanted to try that of