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Title: Geoffrey Strong

Author: Laura E. Richards

Release Date: September, 2005  [EBook #8877]
[This file was first posted on August 19, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, GEOFFREY STRONG ***




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GEOFFREY STRONG

By

Laura E. Richards

Author of

"Captain January," "Melody," "Marie," etc.






  TO
  Richard Sullivan,
  KINDEST OF UNCLES, FRIENDS, AND CRITICS,
  THIS STORY IS AFFECTIONATELY
  DEDICATED




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

   I. THE TEMPLE OF VESTA

  II. THE YOUNG DOCTOR

 III. GARDEN FANCIES

  IV. MOSTLY PROFESSIONAL

   V. LETTER-WRITING AND HYSTERICS

  VI. INFORMATION

 VII. FESTIVITY

VIII. REVELATION

  IX. SIDE LIGHTS

   X. OVER THE WAY

  XI. BROKEN BONES

 XII. CONVALESCENCE

XIII. RECOVERY



ILLUSTRATIONS.


He paddled on in silence

The young doctor glancing around saw all these things.

He stood looking at her, his hand still on the hammock rope.

"There he comes, full chisel!" cried Ithuriel Butters.





CHAPTER I.


THE TEMPLE OF VESTA

"That's a pleasant looking house," said the young doctor. "What's
the matter with my getting taken in there?"

The old doctor checked his horse, and looked at the house with a
smile.

"Nothing in the world," he said, "except the small fact that they
wouldn't take you."

"Why not?" asked the young man, vivaciously. "Too rich? too proud?
too young? too old? what's the matter with them?"

The old doctor laughed outright this time. "You young firebrand!" he
said. "Do you think you are going to take this village by storm?
That house is the Temple of Vesta. It is inhabited by the Vestal
Virgins, who tend the sacred fire, and do other things beside. You
might as well ask to be taken into the meeting-house to board."

"This is more attractive than the meetinghouse," said the young
doctor. "This is one of the most attractive houses I ever saw."

He looked at it earnestly, and as they drove along the elm-shaded
street, he turned in his seat to look at it again.

It certainly was an attractive house. Its front of bright clean red
brick was perhaps too near the street; but the garden, whose tall
lilac and syringa bushes waved over the top of the high wall, must,
he thought, run back some way, and from the west windows there must
be a glorious sea-view.

The house looked both genteel and benevolent. The white stone steps
and window-sills and the white fan over the door gave a certain
effect of clean linen that was singularly pleasing. The young doctor,
unlike Doctor Johnson, had a passion for clean linen. The knocker,
too, was of the graceful long oval shape he liked, and burnished to
the last point of perfection, and the shining windows were so placed
as to give an air of cheerful interrogation to the whole.

"I like that house!" said the young doctor again. "Tell me about the
people!"

Again the old doctor laughed. "I tell you they are the Vestal Virgins!"
he repeated. "There are two of them, Miss Phoebe and Miss Vesta Blyth.
Miss Phoebe is as good as gold, but something of a man-hater. She
doesn't think much of the sex in general, but she is a good friend
of mine, and she'll be good to you for my sake. Miss Vesta"--the
young doctor, who was observant, noted a slight change in his hearty
voice--"Vesta Blyth is a saint."

"What kind of saint? invalid? bedridden? blind?"

"No, no, no! saints don't all have to be bedridden. Vesta is a--you
might call her Saint Placidia. Her life has been shadowed. She was
once engaged--to a very worthy young man--thirty years ago. The day
before the wedding he was drowned; sailboat capsized in a squall,
just in the bay here. Since then she keeps a light burning in the
back hall, looking over the water. That's why I call the house the
Temple of Vesta."

"Day and night?"

"No, no! lights it at sunset every evening regularly. Sun dips,
Vesta lights her lamp. Pretty? I think so."

"Affecting, certainly!" said the young doctor. "And she has mourned
her lover ever since?"

The old doctor gave him a quaint look. "People don't mourn thirty
years," he said, "unless their minds are diseased. Women mourn
longer than men, of course, but ten years would be a long limit,
even for a woman. Memory, of course, may last as long as life--sacred
and tender memory,"--his voice dropped a little, and he passed his
hand across his forehead,--"but not mourning. Vesta is a little
pensive, a little silent; more habit than anything else now. A sweet
woman; the sweetest--"

The old doctor seemed to forget his companion, and flicked the old
brown horse pensively, as they jogged along, saying no more.

The young doctor waited a little before he put his next question.

"The two ladies live alone always?"

"Yes--no!" said the old doctor, coming out of his reverie. "There's
Diploma Crotty, help, tyrant, governor-in-chief of the kitchen. Now
and then she thinks they'd better have a visitor, and tells them so;
but not very often, it upsets her kitchen. But here we are at the
parsonage, and I'll take you in."

The young doctor made his visit at the parsonage dutifully and
carefully. He meant to make a good impression wherever he went. It
was no such easy matter to take the place of the old doctor, who,
after a lifetime of faithful and loving work, had been ordered off
for a year's rest and travel; but the young doctor had plenty of
courage, and meant to do his best. He answered evasively the inquiry
of the minister's wife as to where he meant to board; and though he
noted down carefully the addresses she gave him of nice motherly
women who would keep his things in order, and have an eye to him in
case he should be ailing, he did not intend to trouble these good
ladies if he could help himself.

"I want to live in that brick house!" he said to himself. "I'll have
a try for it, anyhow. The old ladies can't be insulted by my telling
them they have the best house in the village."

After dinner he went for a walk, and strolled along the pleasant
shady street. There were many good houses, for Elmerton was an old
village. Vessels had come into her harbour in bygone days, and
substantial merchant captains had built the comfortable, roomy
mansions which stretched their ample fronts under the drooping elms,
while their back windows looked out over the sea, breaking at the
very foot of their garden walls. But there was no house that compared,
in the young doctor's mind, with the Temple of Vesta. He was walking
slowly past it, admiring the delicate tracery on the white
window-sills, when the door opened, and a lady came out. The young
doctor observed her as she came down the steps; it was his habit to
observe everything. The lady was past sixty, tall and erect, and
walked stiffly.

"Rheumatic!" said the young doctor, and ran over in his mind certain
remedies which he had found effective in rheumatism.

She was dressed in sober gray silk, made in the fashion of thirty
years before, and carried an ancient parasol with a deep silk fringe.
As she reached the sidewalk she dropped her handkerchief. Standing
still a moment, she regarded it with grave displeasure, then tried
to take it up on the point of her parasol. In an instant the young
doctor had crossed the street, picked up the handkerchief, and
offered it to her with a bow and a pleasant smile.

"I thank you, sir!" said Miss Phoebe Blyth. "You are extremely
obliging."

"Don't mention it, please!" said the young doctor. "It was a pleasure.
Have I the honour of speaking to Miss Blyth? I am Doctor Strong.
Doctor Stedman may have spoken to you of me."

"He has indeed done so!" said Miss Phoebe; and she held out her
silk-gloved hand with dignified cordiality. "I am glad to make your
acquaintance, sir. I shall hope to have the pleasure of welcoming
you at my house at an early date."

"Thank you! I shall be most happy. May I walk along with you, as we
seem to be going the same way? I have been admiring your house so
very much, Miss Blyth. It is the finest specimen of its kind I have
ever seen. How fine that tracery is over the windows; and how seldom
you see a fan so graceful as that! Should you object to my making a
sketch of it some day? I'm very much interested in Colonial houses."

A faint red crept into Miss Phoebe's cheek; it was one of her dreams
to have an oil-painting of her house. The young doctor had found a
joint in her harness.

"I should be indeed pleased--" she began; and, being slightly
fluttered, she dropped her handkerchief again, and again the young
doctor picked it up and handed it to her.

"I am distressed!" said Miss Phoebe. "I am--somewhat hampered by
rheumatism, Doctor Strong. It is not uncommon in persons of middle
age."

"No, indeed! My mother--I mean my aunt--younger sister of my mother's--
used to suffer terribly with rheumatism. I was fortunate enough to
be able to relieve her a good deal. If you would like to try the
prescription, Miss Blyth, it is entirely at your service. Not
professionally, please understand, not professionally; a mere
neighbourly attention. I hope we shall be neighbours. Don't mention
it, please don't, because I shall be so glad, you know. Besides--you
have a little look of my--aunt; she has very regular features."

Miss Phoebe thanked him with a rather tremulous dignity; he was a
most courteous and attractive young man, but so impetuous, that she
felt a disturbance of her cool blood. It was singular, though, how
little dear Doctor Stedman had been able to do for her rheumatism,
for as many years as he had been attending her. Perhaps newer methods--
it must be confessed that Doctor Stedman was growing old.

"Where do you intend to lodge, Doctor Strong?" she asked, by way of
changing the subject gracefully.

The young doctor did not know, was quite at a loss.

"There is only one house that I want to lodge in!" he said, and his
bold face had grown suddenly timid, like a schoolboy's. "That is, of
course there are plenty of good houses in the village, Miss Blyth,
excellent houses, and excellent people in them, I have no doubt; but--
well, there is only one house for me. You know what house I mean,
Miss Blyth, because you know how one can feel about a really fine
house. The moment I saw it I said, 'That is the house for me!' But
Doctor Stedman said there was no possible chance of my getting taken
in there."

"I really do not know how Doctor Stedman should speak with authority
on the subject!" said Miss Phoebe Blyth.

Young doctor! young doctor! is this the way you are going to comport
yourself in the village of Elmerton? If so, there will be
flutterings indeed in the dove-cotes. Before night the whole village
knew that the young doctor was going to board with the Blyth girls!




CHAPTER II.


THE YOUNG DOCTOR

"And he certainly is a remarkable young man!" said Miss Phoebe Blyth.
"Is he not, Sister Vesta?"

Miss Vesta came out of her reverie; not with a start,--she never
started,--but with the quiet awakening, like that of a baby in the
morning, that was peculiar to her.

"Yes! oh, yes!" she said. "I consider him so. I think his coming
providential."

"How so?" asked the visitor. There was a slight acidity in her tone,
for Mrs. Weight was one of the motherly persons mentioned by the
minister's wife, and had looked forward to caring for the young
doctor herself. With her four children, all croupy, it would have
been convenient to have a physician in the house, and as the wife of
the senior deacon, what could be more proper?

"I must say he doesn't look remarkable," she added; "but the
light-complected seldom do, to my mind."

"It is years," said Miss Vesta, "since Sister Phoebe has suffered so
little with her rheumatism. Doctor Strong understands her
constitution as no one else ever has done, not even dear Doctor
Stedman. Sister Phoebe can stoop down now like a girl; can't you,
Sister Phoebe? It is a long time since she has been able to stoop
down."

Miss Vesta's soft white face glowed with pleasure; it was a gentle
glow, like that at the heart of certain white roses.

Mrs. Weight showed little enthusiasm.

"I never have rheumatism!" she said, briefly. "I've always wore gold
beads. If you'd have tried gold beads, Phoebe, or a few raisins in
your pocket, it's my belief you'd never have had all this trouble."

It was now Miss Phoebe's turn to colour, but hers was the hard red
of a winter pear.

"I am not superstitious, Anna Maria," she said. "Doctor Strong
considers gold beads for rheumatism absurd, and I fully agree with
him. As for raisins in the pocket, that is nonsense, of course."

"It's best to be sure of your facts before reflecting upon other
folks' statements!" said Mrs. Weight, with dignity. "I know whereof
I speak, Phoebe. Father Weight is ninety years old this very month,
and he has carried raisins for forty years, and never had a twinge
of rheumatism in all that time. The same raisins, too; they have
hardened into stone, as you may say, with what they have absorbed. I
don't need to see things clearer than that."

"H'm!" said Miss Phoebe, with the suspicion of a sniff. "Did he ever
have it before?"

"I wasn't acquainted with him before," said Mrs. Weight, stiffly.

There was a pause; then the visitor went on, dropping her voice with
a certain mystery. "You may talk of superstition, Phoebe, but I must
say I'd sooner be what some folks call superstitious than have no
belief at all. I don't wish to reflect upon any person, but I must
say that, in my opinion, Doctor Strong is little better than an
infidel. To see a perishing human creature set himself up against
the Ordering of Providence is a thing I am sorry to meet with in
_this_ parish."

"Has Doctor Strong set himself against Providence?" asked Miss Phoebe,
her back very rigid, her knitting-needles pointed in stern
interrogation.

"You shall judge for yourselves, girls!" Mrs. Weight spoke with
unction. "At the same time, I wish it to be understood that what I
say is for this room only; I am not one to spread abroad. Well! it
has never been doubted, to _my_ knowledge, that the lower animals
are permitted to absorb diseases from children, who have immortal
souls to save. Even Doctor Stedman, who is advanced enough in all
conscience, never denied that in _my_ hearing. Well! Mrs. Ezra Sloper--
I don't know whether you are acquainted with her, girls; I have my
butter of her. She lives out on the Saugo Road; a most respectable
woman. She has a child with a hump back; fell when it was a baby,
and never got over it. I found she wasn't doing anything for the
child,--nice little boy, four years old; hump growing right out of
his shoulders. I said to her, 'Susan,' I said, 'you want to get a
little dog, and let it sleep with that child, and let the child play
with it all he can, and get real attached to it. If anything will
cure the child, that will.'

"She said, 'Mis' Weight,' she said, 'I'll do it!' and she did. She
thanked me, too, as grateful as ever I was thanked. Well, girls,"--
Mrs. Weight leaned forward, her hands on her knees, and spoke
slowly and impressively,--"as true as I sit here, in three months'
time that dog was humpbacked, and growing more so every day."

She paused, drawing a long breath of triumph, and looked from one to
the other of her hearers.

"Well!" said Miss Phoebe, dryly. "Did the child get well? And where
does Doctor Strong's infidelity come in?"

"The child _would_ have got well," said Mrs. Weight, with tragic
emphasis. "The child might be well, or near it, this living day of
time, if the Ordering of Providence had not been interfered with.
The child had a spell of stomach trouble, and Doctor Strong was sent
for. He ordered the dog out of the house; said it had fleas, and
sore eyes, and I don't know what. Susan Sloper is a weak woman, and
she gave in, and that child goes humpbacked to its grave. I hope
Doctor Strong is prepared to answer for it at the Last Day."

Miss Phoebe laid down her knitting-needles; but before she could
reply, Doctor Strong himself came in, bringing the breeze with him.

"How do you do, Mrs. Weight?" he said, heartily. "How is Billy?
croupy again? Does he go out every day? Do you keep his window open
at night, and give him a cold bath every morning? Fresh air and
bathing are absolutely necessary, you know, with that tendency. Have
you taken off all that load of flannel?"

Mrs. Weight muttered something about supper-time, and fled before
the questioner. The young doctor turned to his hostess, with the
quick, merry smile he had. "I had to send her away!" he said.
"You are flushed, Miss Blyth, and Miss Vesta is tired. Yes, you are,
Miss Vesta; what is the use of denying it?"

He placed a cushion behind Miss Vesta, and she nestled against it
with a little comfortable sigh. She looked at the young doctor kindly,
and he returned the look with one of frank affection.

"Your mother must have had a sight of comfort with you," said
Miss Vesta. "You are a home boy, any one can see that."

"I know when I am well off!" said the young doctor.

Geoffrey Strong certainly was well off. In some singular way, which
no one professed wholly to understand, he had won the confidence of
both the "Blyth girls," who were usually considered the most
exclusive and "stand-offish" people in Elmerton. He made no secret
of being in love with Miss Vesta. He declared that no one could see
her without being in love with her. "Because you are so lovely, you
know!" he said to her half a dozen times a day. The remark never
failed to call up a soft blush, and a gentle "Don't, I pray you, my
dear young friend; you shock me!"

"But I like to shock you," the young doctor would reply. "You look
prettiest when you are shocked." And then Miss Vesta would shake her
pretty white curls (she was not more than sixty, but her hair had
been gray since her youth), and say that if he went on so she must
really call Sister Phoebe; and Master Geoffrey would go off laughing.

He did not make love to Miss Phoebe, but was none the less intimate
with her in frank comradeship. Rheumatism was their first bond.
Doctor Strong meant to make rather a specialty of rheumatism and
kindred complaints, and studied Miss Phoebe's case with ardour.
Every new symptom was received with kindling eye and eager
questionings. It was worst in her back this morning? So! now how
would she describe the pain? Was it acute, darting, piercing? No?
Dull, then! Would she call it grinding, boring, pressing? Ah! that
was most interesting. And for other symptoms--yes! yes! that
naturally followed; he should have expected that.

"In fact, Miss Blyth, you really are a magnificent case!" and the
young doctor glowed with enthusiasm. (This was when he first came to
live in the Temple of Vesta.) "I mean to relieve your suffering;
I'll put every inch there is of me into it. But, meantime, there
ought to be some consolation in the knowledge that you are a most
beautiful and interesting case."

What woman,--I will go farther,--what human being could withstand
this? Miss Phoebe was a firm woman, but she was clay in the hands
of the young doctor,--the more so that he certainly did help her
rheumatism wonderfully.

More than this, their views ran together in other directions. Both
disapproved of matrimony, not in the abstract, but in the concrete
and personal view. They had long talks together on the subject,
after Miss Vesta had gone to bed, sitting in the quaint parlour,
which both considered the pleasantest room in the world. The young
doctor, tongs in hand (he was allowed to pick up the brands and to
poke the fire, a fire only less sacred than that of Miss Vesta's lamp),
would hold forth at length, to the great edification of Miss Phoebe,
as she sat by her little work-table knitting complacently.

"It's all right for most men," he would say. "It steadies them, and
does them good in a hundred ways. Oh, yes, I approve highly of
marriage, as I am sure you do, Miss Blyth; but not for a physician,
at least a young physician. A young physician must be able to give
his whole thought, his whole being, so to speak, to his profession.
There's too much of it for him to divide himself up. Why, take a
single specialty; take rheumatism. If I gave my lifetime, or twenty
lifetimes, to the study of that one malady, I should not begin to
learn the A B C of it."

"One learns a good deal when one has it!" said poor Miss Phoebe.

"Yes, of course, and I am speaking the simple truth when I say that
I wish I could have it for you, Miss Blyth. I should have--it would
be most instructive, most illuminating. Some day we shall have all
that regulated, and medical students will go through courses of
disease as well as of study. I look forward to that, though it will
hardly come in my time. Rheumatism and kindred diseases, say two
terms; fever, two terms--no, three, for you would want to take in
yellow and typhus, as well as ordinary typhoid. Cholera--well, of
course there would be difficulties, but you see the principle. Well,
but we were talking about marriage. Now, you see, with all these new
worlds opening before him, the physician cannot possibly be thinking
of falling in love--"

Miss Phoebe blinked, and coloured slightly. She sometimes wished
Doctor Strong would not use such forcible language.

"Of falling in love and marrying. In common justice to his wife, he
has no business to marry her; I mean, of course, the person who
might be his wife. Up all night, driving about the country all day,--
no woman ought to be asked to share such a life. In fact, the one
reason that might justify a physician in marrying--and I admit it
might be a powerful one--would be where it afforded special
facilities for the study of disease. An obscure and complicated case
of neurasthenia, now,--but these things are hardly practicable;
besides, a man would have to be a Mormon. No, no, let lawyers marry
young; business men, parsons,--especially parsons, because they need
filling out as a rule,--but not doctors."

The young doctor paused, and gave his whole vigorous mind to the
fire for a moment. It was in a precarious condition, and the brands
had to be built up in careful and precise fashion, with red coals
tucked in neatly here and there. Then he took the bellows in hand,
and blew steadily and critically, with keen eyes bent on the
smouldering brands. A few seconds of breathless waiting, and a jet
of yellow flame sprang up, faltered, died out, sprang up again, and
crept flickering in and out among the brands powdered white with
ashes. Now it was a strong, leaping flame, and all the room shone
out in its light; the ancient Turkey carpet, with its soft blending
of every colour into a harmonious no-colour; the quaint portraits,
like court-cards in tarnished gilt frames; the teak-wood chairs and
sofas, with their delicate spindle-legs, and backs inlaid with
sandalwood; Miss Phoebe's work-table, with its bag of faded crimson
damask, and Miss Phoebe herself, pleasant to look upon in her
dove-coloured cashmere gown, with her kerchief of soft net.

[Illustration: The young doctor glancing around saw all these things.]

The young doctor, glancing around, saw all these things in the light
of his newly-resuscitated fire; and seeing, gave a little sigh of
comfort, and laying down the bellows, leaned back in his chair again.

"You were going to say something, Miss Blyth?" he said, in his
eager way. "Please go on! I had to save the fire, don't you know? it
was on its last legs--coals, I should say. Please go on, won't you?"

Miss Phoebe coughed. She had been brought up not to use the word
"leg" freely; "limb" had been considered more elegant, as well as--
but medical men, no doubt, took a broader view of these matters.

"I was merely about to remark," she said, with dignity, "that in
many ways my views on this subject coincide with yours, Doctor Strong.
I have the highest respect for--a--matrimony; it is a holy estate,
and the daughter of my honoured parents could ill afford to think
lightly of it; yet in a great many cases I own it appears to me a
sad waste of time and energy. I have noted in my reading, both
secular and religious, that though the married state is called holy,
the term 'blessed' is reserved for a single life. Women of clinging
nature, or those with few interests, doubtless do well to marry, a
suitable partner being provided; but for a person with the full use
of her faculties, and with rational occupation more than sufficient
to fill her time, I admit I am unable to conceive the attraction of
it. I speak for myself; my sister Vesta has other views. My sister
Vesta had a disappointment in early life. From my point of view, she
would have been far better off without the unfortunate attachment
which--though to a very worthy person--terminated so sadly. But my
sister is not of my opinion. She has a clinging, affectionate nature,
my sister Vesta."

"She's an angel!" said Doctor Strong.

"You are right, my friend, you are very right!" said Miss Phoebe;
and her cap strings trembled with affection. "There is an angelic
quality, surely, in my sister Vesta. She might have been happy--I
trust she would have been--if Providence had been pleased to call
her to the married estate. But for me, Doctor Strong, no! I have
always said, and I shall always say, while I have the use of my
faculties--no! I thank you for the honour you do me; I appreciate
the sentiments to which you have given utterance; but I can never be
yours."

To any third party who had seen Miss Phoebe, drawn up erect in her
chair, uttering these words with chiselled majesty, and Doctor Strong,
bellows in hand, his bright eyes fixed upon her, receiving them with
kindling attention, it might certainly have appeared as if he had
been making her an offer of marriage; but the thought would have
been momentary, for when the good lady ceased, the young doctor
chimed in heartily:

"Quite right! quite right, I'm sure, Miss Blyth. He'd be absurd to
think of such a thing, you know; the idea of your wasting your time!
That's what I say to fellows; 'How can you waste your time, when
you'll be dead before you know it anyhow, and not have had time to
look about you, much less learn anything?' No, sir,--I beg your
pardon, ma'am! A single life for me. My own time, my own will, and
my own way!"

Miss Phoebe looked at him with very kind eyes.

"Doctor Strong," she said, "I think--it is no light thing for me to
say, holding the convictions I do--but I think you are worthy of
single blessedness!"




CHAPTER III.


GARDEN FANCIES

Miss Vesta was trimming her lamp. That meant, in this early summer
season, that it was after seven o'clock. The little lady stood at
the window in the upper hall. It was a broad window, with a low
round arch, looking out on the garden and the sea beyond it. A
bracket was fastened to the sill, and on this bracket stood the lamp
that Miss Vesta was trimming. (It was against all fitness, as
Miss Phoebe said, that a lamp should be trimmed at this hour. Every
other lamp in the house was in perfect order by nine o'clock in the
morning; but it was Miss Vesta's fancy to trim this lamp in the
evening, and Miss Phoebe made a point of indulging her sister's
fancies when she conscientiously could.)

It was a brass lamp of quaint pattern, and the brass shone so that
several Miss Vestas, with faces curiously distorted, looked out at
the real one, as she daintily brushed off the burnt wicking, and,
after filling and lighting the lamp, replaced the brilliantly
polished chimney. She watched the flame as it crept along the wick;
then, when it burned steady and clear, she folded her hands with a
little contented gesture, and looked out of the window.

The sun had set. The sea on which Miss Vesta looked was a water of
gold, shimmering here and there into opal; only where it broke on
the shingle at the garden foot, the water was its usual colour of a
chrysophrase, with a rim of ivory where it touched the shore. The
window was open, and a light breeze blew from the water; blew across
the garden, and brought with it scents of lilac, syringa, and June
roses. It was a pleasant hour, and Miss Vesta was well content. She
liked even better the later evening, when the glow would fade from
the west, and her lamp would shed its own path of gold across the
water; but this was pleasant enough.

"It is a very sightly evening!" said Miss Vesta, in the soft
half-voice in which she often talked to herself. "Good Lord, I
beseech thee, protect all souls at sea this night; for Jesus
Christ's sake; amen!"

This was the prayer that Miss Vesta had offered every evening for
thirty years. As often as she repeated it, the sea before her eyes
changed, and she saw a stretch of black tossing water, with
foam-crests that the lightning turned to pale fire; a sail drove
across her window, dipped, and disappeared. Miss Vesta closed her
eyes.

But as the old doctor said, people do not mourn for thirty years;
when she opened her eyes, they were grave, but serene. "It is a very
sightly evening!" she repeated. She leaned out of the window, and
drew in long breaths of sweetness. Presently the sweetness was
crossed by a whiff of a different fragrance, pungent, aromatic,--the
fragrance of tobacco. Doctor Strong was smoking his evening cigar in
the garden. He would not have thought of smoking in the house, even
if Miss Phoebe would have allowed it; he smoked as he rode on his
morning round, and he took his evening cigar, as now, in the garden.
Miss Vesta saw him now, in the growing dusk, striding up and down;
not hastily, but with energy and determination in every stride. Her
eyes dwelt upon him affectionately; she had grown very fond of him.
It was delightful to her to have this young, vigorous creature in the
house, fairly electric with life and joy and strength; she felt
younger every time she saw him. He was good to look at, too, though
no one would have called him a beauty. Tall and well-made, his head
properly set on shoulders that were perhaps the least bit too square;
his fair hair cropped close, in hope of destroying the curl that
would still creep into it in spite of him; his hazel eyes as bright
as eyes could be, his skin healthy red and brown,--yes, the young
doctor was good to look at. So Miss Vesta thought. There was a
little look, too--it could hardly be called a resemblance--yet he
reminded her somehow--Miss Vesta's face changed from a white to a
pink rose, and she said, softly, "If I had had a son, he might have
looked like this. The Lord be with him and give him grace!"

As Miss Vesta watched him, Geoffrey Strong stopped to examine
something in one of the borders; stooped, hands on knees, and
scrutinised a certain plant; then, glancing upward as he
straightened himself, saw Miss Vesta at the window looking down at
him.

"Hurrah!" he cried. "Come down, Miss Vesta, won't you, please? you
are the very person I want. I want to show you something."

"Surely!" said Miss Vesta. "I will be with you in a moment, Doctor
Strong; only let me get a head-covering from my room."

When she had left the window, Geoffrey was almost sorry he had
called her; she made such a pretty picture standing there, framed in
the broad window, the evening light falling softly on her soft face
and silver hair. It was so nice of her to wear white in the evening!
Why didn't old ladies always wear white? when they were pretty, he
added, reflecting that Miss Phoebe in white would be an alarming
vision. His mind still on Miss Vesta, he quoted half aloud:

  "A still, sweet, placid, moonlight face,
    And slightly nonchalant,
  Which seems to hold a middle place
    Between one's love and aunt."

"I wish you were my aunt!" he exclaimed, abruptly, when Miss Vesta
appeared a few minutes later, with a screen of delicate white wool
over her head and shoulders.

"Is that what you wished to say to me?" asked Miss Vesta, somewhat
bewildered.

"No! oh, no! I was only thinking what a perfect aunt you would make.
No, I wanted to show you something; a line out of Browning,
illustrated in life; one of my favourite lines. See here, Miss Vesta!"

Miss Vesta looked.

"I see nothing," she began. "Oh, yes, a miller! Is that it, Doctor
Strong? Quite a curious miller. The study of insect life is no doubt--"

"A moth! don't you see?" cried the young doctor. "On the phlox, the
white phlox."

  "'And here she paused in her gracious talk
  To point me a moth on the milk-white phlox.'"


"Don't you remember, in the 'Garden Fancies?'"

But Miss Vesta did not remember.

Didn't she know Browning?

She confessed that she did not. She had fancied that he was not quite--
she hardly thought that ladies did read his works to any extent.
"Cowper was my favourite poet in my youth," she said, "and I was
very fond of Mrs. Hemans and Mrs. Barbauld. Their poetry is at once
elegant and elevated in tone and spirit. I hope you agree with me,
Doctor Strong?"

"I don't know!" said Geoffrey, "I never read 'em. But Shelley,
Miss Vesta! you love Shelley, I'm sure? He would have loved you so,
you know."

Miss Vesta's quiet face showed a little trouble. "Mr. Shelley's
poetry," she said, hesitatingly, "is very beautiful. He was--some
one I once knew was devoted to Mr. Shelley's poetry. He--used to
read it to me. But Sister Phoebe thought Mr. Shelley's religious
views were--a--not what one would wish, and she objected to my
following the study."

"He wrote about moths, too," said Geoffrey, abstractedly. "The
desire of the moth for the star, you know. Those things make you
feel queer when they come to you out here, with all these lights and
dusks and smells. Now I wonder why!"

Miss Vesta looked at him kindly. "Perhaps there is some tender
association," she said, gently, "such as is natural at your age, my
dear young friend."

"Not an association!" said Geoffrey, stoutly. "Never had one in my
life. It's only in a general way. These things stir one up, somehow;
it's a form of mental intoxication. Do you think a man could get
drunk on sunset and phlox, Miss Vesta?"

"Oh, I trust not, I trust not!" said Miss Vesta, hurriedly, and she
made haste to change the subject. She as well as her sister found
the young doctor's expressions overstrong at times, yet she loved
the lad.

"The roses are at their sweetest now," she said, leading the
conversation gently away from the too passionate white phlox, on
which the moth was still waving its wings drowsily. "This black
damask is considered very fine, but I love the old-fashioned June
roses best."

"'She loves you, noble roses, I know!'" said Geoffrey, who certainly
was not himself to-night. "This one is exactly like you, Miss Vesta.
Look at it; just the colour of ivory with a little sunset mixed in.
Now you know what you look like."

"Oh, hush, my dear young friend!" said Miss Vesta. "You must not--
really, you know--talk in this way. But--it is curious that you
should have noticed that particular rose; it--it is the kind I used
to wear when I was young."

She looked up at the lamp in the window. Geoffrey's eyes followed
hers. Involuntarily he laid his hand on hers. "Dear Miss Vesta!" he
said, and his strong, hearty voice could be very gentle. "Miss Blyth
told me. Does it still hurt, dear lady?"

Miss Vesta's breath fluttered for a moment, but it was only a moment.
Her soft white fingers, cool as rose-leaves, returned the pressure
of his affectionately. "No, my--my dear," she said. "It does not hurt--
now. There is no pain now, only memory; blessed, blessed memory. He--
there is something--you remind me of him a little, Doctor Geoffrey."

They stood silent, the young man and the old woman, hand in hand in
the soft evening. The splendour in the west died out, and soft
clouds of gray and purple brooded like wings over the sea. The water
deepened from gold to glimmering gray, from gray to deep brown and
blue. In one spot a faint glimmer trembled on the waves; the light
from Miss Vesta's lamp. The little lady gazed at it long, then
looked up into the strong young face above her.

"He was--your age!" she said, hurrying the words out in a low murmur,
hardly louder than the night breeze in the tall lilac-trees.
"He was bright and strong and gay like you; his sun went down while
it was yet day. The Lord took him into his holy keeping. I wish--I
wish you all the joy I should have tried to give him, Doctor Geoffrey.
I wish your life fortunate and brave, and your love happy; more than
all, your love happy."

She pressed his hand, and went quietly away; came back for a moment
to pat his arm and say she trusted she had not distressed him, and
beg him not to stay out too long in the night air; then went into
the house, closing the door softly after her.

Left alone, Geoffrey Strong fell to his pacing again, up and down
the neat gravel paths with their tall box hedges. His face was very
tender; looking at it, one might know he had been a loving son to
his mother. But presently he frowned over his cigar, and then laughed,
and went and shook the unoffending moth (it was a rare one, if he
had been thinking of that kind of thing) off the phlox.

"All the more reason, Stupid!" he said to the moth, as it flew away.
"A man goes and gets a girl to care for him, and then he goes and
plays some fool trick--like as not this chap had his sheet tied--and
leaves her alone the rest of her life. Just look at this sweet old
angel, will you? it's a shame. No, sir, no woman in mine, thank you!"

He paced again. The moth fluttered off in the gloom; fluttered back,
hovered, then settled once more on the milk-white phlox, which
glimmered like a fragrant ghost in the half-light. The perfume
rose from the flowers and mingled with the delicate scent of the
roses and the heavier breath of lilac and syringa.


  "'Where I find her not, beauties vanish;
  Whither I follow her, beauties flee.
  Is there no method to tell her in Spanish"--


"Oh, I must be drunk!" said Doctor Geoffrey. He tried another path.
A new fragrance met him, the keen, clean, cruelly sweet smell of
honeysuckle. Browning was gone with the phlox and the roses; and what
was this coming unbidden into his head, crisp and clean and
possessing, like the honeysuckle?


  "'Where e're she be,
  That not impossible She
  Who shall command my life and me"--


"I _am_ drunk!" said Geoffrey Strong. And he threw away his cigar
and went to bed.




CHAPTER IV.


MOSTLY PROFESSIONAL.

"I fear Doctor Strong will be very much put out!" said Miss Phoebe
Blyth.

Miss Vesta sighed, and stirred her coffee delicately. "It is
unfortunate!" she said.

"Unfortunate! my dearest Vesta, it is calamitous. Just when he is
comfortably settled in surroundings which he feels to be congenial"--
Miss Phoebe bridled, and glanced round the pleasant dining-room--
"to have these surroundings invaded by what he dislikes most in the
world, a girl, and a sick girl at that; I tell you it would not
surprise me if he should give notice at once."

This was not quite true, for Miss Phoebe would have been greatly
surprised at Doctor Strong's doing anything of the kind; but she
enjoyed saying it, and felt rather better after it.

"We could not possibly refuse, though, Sister Phoebe," said
Miss Vesta, mildly. "Little Vesta being my name-child, and
Brother Nathaniel without faculty, as one may say,--and it is
certainly no place for her at home."

"My dearest Vesta, I have not been entirely deprived of my senses!"
Miss Phoebe spoke with some asperity. "Of course we cannot refuse,
and of course we must do our utmost for our brother's motherless
child; but none the less, it is calamitous, I repeat; and I am
positive that Doctor Strong will be greatly annoyed."

At this moment Geoffrey came in, full of apologies for his ten
minutes' tardiness. The apologies were graciously received. The
Miss Blyths would never have thought of such a thing as being late
to breakfast themselves, but they were not ill-pleased to have their
lodger, occasionally--not too often--sleep beyond the usual hour. It
showed that he felt at home, Miss Phoebe said, and Miss Vesta, the
mother-instinct brooding over the lad she loved, thought he needed
all the sleep he could get, and more.

"It's really disgraceful!" said the young doctor for the third time,
as he drew his chair up to the table. "Yes, please, three lumps.
There never was such coffee in the world, Miss Blyth. I believe the
Sultan sends it to you from his own private coffee-garden. Creamed
chicken? won't I? and muffins, and marmalade,--what a blessing to be
naturally greedy! More pain this morning, Miss Blyth? I hope not."
His quick eye had seen the cloud on his hostess's brow, and he was
all attention and sympathy over his coffee-cup.

"I thank you, Doctor Strong; I feel little pain this morning; in fact,
I may almost say none. But I--we have been somewhat disturbed by the
contents of a letter we have received."

"Bad news?" cried Geoffrey. "I'm so sorry! Is there anything I can do,
Miss Blyth? You will command me, of course; send telegrams or--"

"I--thank you! You are always most kind and considerate, Doctor
Strong. The fact is"--Miss Phoebe hesitated, casting about in her
mind for the best way of breaking the news,--"the fact is, my
brother is a widower."

"Very sad, I'm sure!" murmured Geoffrey Strong. "Was it sudden?
these shocks are terribly trying. How did she--"

"Oh--no! you misapprehend me, Doctor Strong. Not sudden, nor--nor
what you would call recent. It is some years since Nathaniel's wife
died."

"Old gentleman going to pass away himself?" said Geoffrey, but not
aloud; he was aware of his tendency to headlong plunges; it was
manifestly better to wait further explanations and not commit himself.

"My brother has an only daughter," Miss Phoebe went on, "a girl of
twenty. She has been at college (I strongly disapproved of her going,
but the child is headstrong), and has worked beyond her strength. She--
that is, her father, is anxious for her to come and pass a month or
two with us; he thinks the sea air will benefit her."

"No doubt it will!" said Geoffrey, still awaiting the catastrophe.
It was a great bore, of course, in fact a nuisance, but it couldn't
be helped.

"This--this is what has troubled us, Doctor Strong. We fear, my
sister and I, that the presence of a young--person of the other sex--
will be disturbing to you."

Miss Vesta looked up quickly, but said nothing. Geoffrey looked
bewildered for a moment, then laughed aloud, colouring like a
schoolboy. "Why, Miss Blyth, what must you think of me?" he said.
"I am not particularly given to--to the society of young ladies, but
I am not such a misogynist as all that."

Miss Phoebe did not know what a misogynist was, and did not like to
ask; there were so many dangerous and levelling doctrines about, as
her father always said. Whatever it was, she was heartily glad that
Doctor Strong did not believe in it.

"Vesta is a good child," said Miss Vesta. "She makes no noise or
trouble in the house, even when she is well. We shall of course see
that your convenience is not interfered with in any way, Doctor
Strong."

"If you talk like that, I shall pack my trunk and go to-morrow,"
said Geoffrey, decidedly; "and I don't want to go a bit. It's I who
am likely to be in the way, so far as I can see; but you won't send
me off just yet, will you?"

When Geoffrey Strong smiled, people were apt to do what he wished,
unless they were ill-conditioned people indeed, and Miss Phoebe and
Miss Vesta were far from ill-conditioned.

"I've never been so happy anywhere," the young man went on in his
eager way, "since--since my own home was broken up. I'd stay if you
would let me, if there were twenty--I--I mean, of course it will be
delightful to--may I have another muffin, please? Thanks!" Geoffrey
had broken short off, being a person of absolute honesty.

"I trust your niece is not seriously out of health," he said, in
conclusion, with his most professional air. "Is any malady indicated,
or merely overfatigue?"

Miss Phoebe put on her spectacles and took up the letter. "There is
a word," she said, "that I did not understand, I must confess. If
you will allow me, Doctor Strong, I will read you a portion of my
brother's remarks. A--yes! 'Vesta seems very far from well. She cries,
and will not eat, and she looks like a ghost. The doctor calls it
neurasthenia.'"

Doctor Strong uttered an exclamation. Miss Phoebe looked up in
dismay.

"It is nothing contagious, I trust, Doctor Strong?"

"No! no! nothing of the kind. Go on, please! any more symptoms?"

"I think not. She has no appetite, he says, and does not sleep well.
He says nothing of any rash." Miss Phoebe looked anxiously at the
young doctor. To her amazement, he was leaning forward, muffin in
hand, his face wearing its brightest and most eager look.

"Is that all?" he said. "Well--of course that's not professional.
Very likely the physician there will send a written diagnosis if you
ask him. You see, Miss Blyth, this is very interesting to me. I want
to make a study of nerves,--that's all the word means, disordered
nerves,--and it will be the greatest pleasure to me to try to be of
service to your niece; if you should wish it, that is."

"Oh, Doctor Strong! you are _too_ kind!" said both ladies in duet.

They were so relieved, they overflowed in little grateful courtesies.
He must have more cream; he was eating nothing. They feared his egg
was not quite--was he positively sure? it would sometimes happen,
with the greatest care, that eggs were not quite--a little scrap
more bacon, then! or would he fancy some fresh cream cheese? and so
on and so on, till the young doctor cried out, and said that if he
ate any more he should not be able to mount his bicycle, far less
ride it.

"By the way," he added, "I didn't see you when I came in last night.
I hope I didn't disturb either of you. No? That's right; if I ever
make a noise coming in late, shoot me at sight, please. You took the
powder, Miss Blyth? and slept well? Hurrah! Well, I was going to say,
I had a rather amusing time at Shellback."

Shellback was a village some ten miles off, whither he had been
summoned the evening before. Both ladies brightened up. They
delighted to hear of the young doctor's experiences.

"I don't suppose you know," Doctor Strong went on,--"no, you
wouldn't be likely to,--an old man named Butters, Ithuriel Butters?
Quaint name! suggests 'Paradise Lost' and buns. Old Man Butters they
call him. Well, I went to see him; and I got a lesson in therapeutics,
and two recipes for curing rheumatism, beside. I think I must try
one of them on you, Miss Blyth."

Miss Phoebe, who was literal, was about to assure him that she was
amply satisfied with the remedies already in use; but he went on, in
high enjoyment, evidently seeing almost with his bodily vision the
figures he conjured up.

"It seems the old gentleman didn't want me sent for; in fact, the
family had done it on the sly, being alarmed at certain symptoms new
to them. I got out there, and found the old fellow sitting in his
armchair, smoking his pipe; fine-looking old boy, white hair and
beard, and all that. Looked me all over, and asked me what I wanted.
Wife and daughter kept out of the way, evidently scared at what they
had done. I went in alone. I said I had come to see him.

"'All right,' says he. 'No extra charge!' and he shut his eyes, and
smoked away for dear life. Presently he opened his eyes, and looked
at me again.

"'Like my looks?' he says.

"'Yes,' said I. I thought he might have returned the compliment, but
he didn't; he only grunted. I waited a bit, talked of this and that;
at last I said, 'How are you feeling this evening, Mr. Butters?'

"'First-rate!' said he. 'How be you?'

"'I'm all right,' said I,' but I don't believe you are, sir. You are
not the right colour at all.'

"'What colour be I? not green, I calc'late!' Then we both laughed,
and felt better. I asked if I might smoke, too, and took out my pipe.
Pretty soon the old fellow began to talk.

"'My women-folks sent for you, did they? I suspicioned they had. Fact,
I was slim this mornin'; took slim suddin, whilest I was milkin'.
Didn't relish my victuals, and that scairt the woman. But I took my
physic, and, come afternoon, I was spryer 'n a steer agin.'

"'What is your physic, if I may ask, Mr. Butters?'

"'Woodpile!' says the old fellow.

"'Woodpile?' said I.

"'Cord o' wood. Axe. Sweat o' the brow. Them's the best physic I
know of.'

"He smoked on for a bit, and I sat and looked at him, admiring how
the world was made. I don't know whether you read Kipling, Miss Vesta.
I was rewarded for my patience.

"'Young feller,' said the old man, after awhile, 'how old do you
s'pose I be?'

"'Seventy,' said I; and he looked it, not a day over.

"'Add fifteen to that,' says he, 'and you have it. Eighty-five year
last Jenooary. You are under thirty, I reckon? Thought so! Well, I
was gettin' on for sixty year old when you was born. See?'

"I did see, but I wasn't going to give in yet. 'Did you ever study
medicine, Mr. Butters?' I said.

"'Study medicine? No, sir! but I've lived with my own bones and
insides till I know 'em consid'able well; and I've seen consid'able
of folks, them as doctored and them as didn't. My wives doctored,
all three of 'em. I buried two of 'em, and good ones, too; and, like
as not, I'll bury the third. She ain't none too rugged this summer,
though she ain't but seventy. But, what I say is, start well, and
stay well, and don't werry. You tell your patients that, and fust
thing you know you won't have any.'"

"A singularly ignorant person, this Mr. Butters!" said Miss Phoebe.

"I don't know!" said the young doctor. "I'm not so sure about that.
I know it would be a bad thing for the medical profession if his
ideas were generally taken up. Well, he went on over his pipe. I
wish you could have seen him, Miss Vesta. He looked like a veritable
patriarch come to life. Fancy Abraham with a T.D. pipe, and you have
Ithuriel Butters. Awfully sad for those poor old duffers not to have
tobacco. I beg your pardon, Miss Blyth.

"'Yes,' said the old fellow. 'I've seen folks as doctored, and I've
seen folks as fooled.'

"'Fooled?' said I.

"'Notions; fool's tricks; idees! Take my brother Reuel. He used to
have rheumatiz; had it bad. One day there was a thunder-storm, and
he was out gettin' in his hay, and was struck by lightnin'. Fluid
run along the rake and spit in his face, he used to say. He lost the
use of his eyes and hands for six months, but he never had rheumatiz
again for twenty years. Swore it was the electricity; said he
swallered it, and it got into his system and cured him. What do you
say to that, young feller?'

"'It's an experiment I never tried,' said I. 'I'm not going to
commit myself, Mr. Butters. But that's a good story.'

"'Hold on!' said he; 'that ain't all. 'Bout twenty-five years after
that--Reuel was gettin' on by that time--he was out fishin', and a
squall come up and swamped his boat. He was in the water quite a
spell, and come next day he was all doubled up with rheumatiz. He
was the maddest man you ever see. He wouldn't do a thing, only sit
hunched up in his chair and ask about the weather. It was summer-time,
and good hayin' weather as a rule. Bumbye come a fryin' hot day, and
sure enough we had a thunder-storm in the afternoon. When it was
bangin' away good and solid, Reuel hitched himself out of his chair,
took an iron rake in one hand and a hoe in the other, crep' out of
the house, and went and sat down under a tree in the middle of the
pasture. Wife tried to stop him, but she might as well have tried to
stop the lightnin'. Well, sir, the tree was struck, and Reuel never
had no more rheumatiz. Couldn't tell which was tree and which was him.
That comes of havin' idees.'"

"Dear me!" said Miss Vesta. "What a painful story! His poor wife!"

"Such impious ignorance I think I never heard of!" said Miss Phoebe,
rigidly. "I should think the--a--family a most unprofitable one for
you to visit, Doctor Strong."

"But so consistent!" said Geoffrey. "Knowing their own minds, and
carrying out their own theories of hygiene. It's very refreshing, I
must admit. But"--Geoffrey saw that his hostesses were not amused,
nor anything but pained and shocked--"this is enough about Ithuriel
Butters, isn't it? We decided that he would better take a little
something dark-coloured, with a good solid smell to it, to please
his 'women-folks;' he'll go out some day like the snuff of a candle,
and he knows it. But you don't want to try the lightning cure, do you,
Miss Blyth?"

"I most certainly do not!" said Miss Phoebe, concisely; and she
reflected that even the best and most intelligent of men might often
be lacking in delicate perception.




CHAPTER V.


LETTER-WRITING AND HYSTERICS

The young doctor sat in his room writing. It was a pleasant room,
looking upon the garden, and in style and furnishing altogether to
the young doctor's taste. He liked the tall narrow mantel, with its
delicate mouldings; he liked the white paint, and the high
wainscoting against which, the old mahogany came out so well; and he
liked the mahogany itself, which was in quaint and graceful shapes.
The dimity curtains, too, with their ball and tassel fringe, were of
such a fresh clear white. They had never been dirty, they never could
be dirty, the young doctor thought; some things must always be fresh
and clean; like that girl's dresses. He was sitting in his favourite
chair; a chair that stimulated to effort or wooed to repose,
according to the attitude one assumed in it. Geoffrey Strong felt a
sort of ownership in this chair, for he had discovered the secret
pocket in one arm; the tiny panel which, when pressed one day by his
careless fingers, slipped aside, revealing a dark polished well, and
in the well an ancient vinaigrette of green and gold glass. Sometimes
Geoffrey would take out the vinaigrette and sniff its faded perfume,
and it told him a new story every time. Now, however, it lay quiet
in its nest, for Geoffrey was writing busily.


  "You can't laugh any more at me and my old
  ladies, Jim. There's a new development, a young
  lady; niece, visitor here, and invalid visitor at that.
  Neurasthenia, overwork at college, the old story.
  When will young women learn that they are not
  young men? Malady in this case takes the form
  of aversion to the male sex in general, and G. S. in
  particular. Handsome, sullen creature, tawny hair,
  eyes no particular colour, but very brilliant; pupils
  much dilated. I won't bother you with symptoms
  while you are off on your vacation, but she has
  some interesting ones. The dear old ladies want
  me to prescribe for her, but she prefers to play with
  pills herself. Has a remarkable voice, deep notes
  now and again that thrill like the middle tones of
  a 'cello; or might, if they said anything but 'Please
  pass the butter!' If she were better tempered, I
  should be tempted to send for you; you are simply
  spoiling for some one to fall in love with, I can tell
  that from your last letter. The pretty brunette had
  not intellectuality enough, had she? My dear
  fellow, as if that had anything to do with it! You
  were not ready, that was all. You fall in love by
  clockwork once every year; and it is time now. If
  you should see the P. B. again to-morrow, you'd be
  lost directly. As for me--I should think you
  would be tired of asking. No, I am not in love.
  No, I feel no inclination whatever to become so.
  No, there is no 'charmer' (what vile expressions
  you use, James; go back to the English Department,
  and learn how to speak of Woman!) who interests
  me in the least (except pathologically, of course),
  except Miss Vesta Blyth, aged sixty. I am in love
  with her, I grant you; anybody would be, with eyes
  in his head. Don't I know that I would amount to
  twice as much if the society of women formed part
  of my life? Numskull, it _does_ form part of it, a
  very important part. In the first place, I have my
  patients. Body of me, my patients! Did I not sit
  a stricken hour with Mrs. Abigail Plummer yesterday
  afternoon? She 'feels a crawling in her pipes,'--I'll
  spare you Mrs. Plummer, but you must hear
  how Mrs. Cotton cured her lumbago. (I am still
  hunting rheumatic affections, yes, and always shall
  be.) She took a quart of rum, my Christian friend;
  she put into it a pound and a half of sulphur and
  three-quarters of a pound of cream tartar, and took
  'a good swaller' three or four times a day. There's
  therapeutics for you, sir! Lady weighs three hundred
  pounds if she does an ounce, and has a colour
  like a baby's. Well, I could go on indefinitely.
  That's in the first place. In the second, I have
  here in this house society that is absolutely to my
  mind. Experience is life, you grant that. Therefore,
  the person of experience is the person who
  really lives. (Of course I admit exceptions.) Therefore,
  the society of a woman of sixty--an intelligent
  woman--is infinitely more to be desired than that
  of a callow girl with nothing but eyes and theories.
  It is profitable, it is delightful; and this with no
  hurrying of the heart, no upsetting of the nerves,
  none of the deplorable symptoms that I observe
  annually in my friend Mr. James Swift. That for
  the second place. There is a third. Jim, Jim, do
  you forget that I was brought up with 'six female
  cousins, and all of them girls?' They were virtuous
  young women, every one of them; one or two were
  good looking; four of them (including the plainest),
  have married, and I trust their husbands find them
  interesting. I did not, but I 'learned about women
  from them,' as the lynx-eyed schoolboy does learn.
  I divided them into three classes, sugary, vinegary,
  peppery; to-day I should be more professional; let
  us say saccharine, acidulated, irritant. These classes
  still seem to me to include the greater part of young
  womankind. Sorry to displease, but sich am de
  facts. And--yes, I still sing '_aber hierathen ist nie
  mein Sinn_!' Business? oh, so so! A country
  doctor doesn't make a fortune, but he learns a power,
  if he isn't an idiot. Now here is enough about me,
  in all conscience. When you write, tell me about
  yourself, and what the other fellows are doing.
  After all, that is--"

Geoffrey came to the end of his paper, and paused to take a fresh
sheet. Glancing up as he did so, he also glanced out of the window,
to see what was going on in the garden. He always liked to keep in
touch with the garden, and was on intimate terms with every bird and
blossom in it. It was neither bird nor blossom that his eyes lighted
on now. A young girl stood on the gravel-path, near his favourite
syringa arbour. A hammock hung over her arm, and she carried a book
and a pillow. She was looking about her, evidently trying to select
a place to hang her hammock. Geoffrey considered her. She was
dressed in clear white; her hair, of a tawny reddish yellow, hung in
one heavy braid over her shoulder.

"Oh, yes, she is handsome," said Geoffrey, addressing the
syringa-bush. "I never said she wasn't handsome. The question is,
would she like me to hang that hammock for her, or would she
consider it none of my business?"

At this moment the girl dropped the book; then the pillow slipped
from her hands. She threw down the hammock with a petulant gesture
and stood looking at the syringa-bush as if it were her mortal enemy.
Geoffrey Strong laid down his pen.

A few minutes later he came sauntering leisurely around the corner.
One would have said he had been spending an hour in the garden, and
was now going in.

"Good morning, Miss Blyth! glorious day, isn't it? going to sling a
hammock? let me do it, won't you?"

Vesta Blyth looked at him with sombre eyes. "I couldn't hold it!"
she said, unwillingly. "There is no strength left in my hands."

"You are still tired, you see," said Geoffrey, cheerfully, as he
picked up the hammock. "That's perfectly natural."

"It isn't natural!" said the girl, fiercely. "It's devilish!"

"This is a good place," said Geoffrey, paying no attention to her.
"Combination of shade and sun, you see. Pillow at this end? There!
how is that?"

"Thank you! it will do very well."

She stretched herself at full length in the hammock. Her movements
were perfectly graceful, he noted; and he made a swift comparison
with the way his cousins flounced or twittered or slumped into a
hammock.

[Illustration: He stood looking at her, his hand still on the
hammock rope.]

He stood looking at her, his hand still on the hammock-rope. He was
conscious only of a friendly feeling of compassion for this fair
young creature, built for vigour and an active life, now condemned
for months, it might be years, of weariness and pain. Whether any
unconscious keenness of scrutiny crept into his eyes or not, is not
known; but as Vesta Blyth looked up and met their gaze, a wave of
angry crimson rushed over her face and neck.

"Doctor Strong," she said, violently, her voice low and vibrating,
as some women's are in passion, "I must request you _not_ to look at
me!"

Geoffrey started, and coloured in his turn. "I beg your pardon!" he
said. "I was not aware--I assure you I had no intention of being rude,
Miss Blyth."

"You were not rude!" Vesta swept on. "I am rude; I am unreasonable,
I am absurd. I can't help it. I will not be looked at professionally.
Half the people in this village would welcome your professional
glance as a beam from heaven, and bask in it, and drop every symptom
as if it were a pearl, but I am not a 'case.' I am simply a human
being, who asks nothing but to be let alone."

She stopped abruptly, her bosom heaving, her eyes like black agates
with fire behind them, looking straight past him at the trees beyond.
"If you wish to put me to the last humiliation," she added, hurriedly,
"you may wait and have the satisfaction of seeing me cry; if not--"

But Geoffrey was gone, fleeing into the house with the sound of
stormy sobs chasing him like Furies. He never stopped till he
reached his own room, where he flung himself into his chair in most
unprofessional agitation. The window was open--what a fool he was to
leave windows open!--and the sound followed him; he could not shut
it out. Dreadful sobs, choking, agonising; he felt, as if he saw it,
the whole slender figure convulsed with them. Good heavens! the girl
would be in convulsions if she went on at this rate.

Now the sobs died away into long moans, into quivering breaths; now
they broke out again, insistent, terrible. Broken words among them,
too.

"What shall I do? Oh, dear! oh, dear! what shall I do?"

Geoffrey, who had been trying to look over some papers, started up
and paced the room hurriedly. "This--this is very curious!" he was
trying to say to himself. "Hysteria pure and simple--very interesting--
I must note the duration of the paroxysms. Good God! can't somebody
stop her? perfectly inhuman, to let a creature go on like that!"

He was at the door, with some vague idea of alarming the house, when
a soft knock was heard on the other side. He flung the door open,
and startled Miss Vesta so that she gave a little cry of dismay, and
retreated to the head of the stairs. "Pray excuse me, Doctor Strong,"
she said. "I see that you are occupied; I pray you to excuse me!"

"No, no!" said Geoffrey, hurriedly. "I am not--it's nothing at all.
What can I do for you, Miss Vesta? Do come in, please!"

"My niece," said the little lady, with a troubled look, "is in a
highly nervous condition to-day, Doctor Strong. She is--weeping. My
sister thought you might have--" she paused, as Miss Phoebe's crisp
and decided tones came up over the stairs.

"Little Vesta has got into a crying-spell, Doctor Strong. I want a
little valerian for her, please. I will go down and give it to her
myself, if you will hand it to my sister."

"In one moment, Miss Blyth," called Geoffrey, in his most composed
and professional tones. Then, seizing Miss Vesta's hand, he almost
dragged her into the room, and shut the door.

"Don't let her go!" he said, hurriedly, as he sought and poured out
the valerian. "Take it yourself, please, Miss Vesta, please! Miss
Blyth will--that is, she is less gentle than you; if your niece is
in such a condition as--as you say, you are the one to soothe her.
Will you go? Please do."

"Dear Doctor Strong," said Miss Vesta, panting a little, "are you--I
fear you are unwell yourself. You alarm me, my dear young friend."

"I am a brute," said Geoffrey; "a clumsy, unfeeling brute!" He
kissed her little white wrinkled hand; then, still holding it, paused
to listen. The voice came up again from the place of torture.

"What shall I do? Oh, dear! oh, dear! what shall I do?"

He pressed the glass in Miss Vesta's hand. "There! there! a
teaspoonful at once, please; but you will be better than medicine.
Tell Miss Blyth--tell her I want very much to speak to her, please!
Ask if she could come up here now, this moment, just for two or
three minutes. And you'll go down yourself, won't you, Miss Vesta--
dear Miss Vesta?"

He was so absorbed in listening he did not hear the creaking of
Miss Phoebe's morocco shoes on the stairs; and when she appeared
before him, flushed and slightly out of breath, he stared at the
good lady as if he had never seen her before.

"You wished to see me, Doctor Strong?" Miss Phoebe began. She was
half pleased, half ruffled, at being summoned in this imperious way.

"Yes--oh, yes," answered Geoffrey, vaguely. "Come in, please,
Miss Blyth. Won't you sit down--no, I wouldn't sit near the window,
it's damp to-day (it was not in the least damp). Sit here, in my
chair. Did you know there was a secret pocket in this chair? Very
curious thing!"

"I was aware of it," said Miss Phoebe, with dignity. "Was that what
you wished to say to me, Doctor Strong?"

"No--oh, no (thank Heaven, she has stopped! that angel is with her).
I--I am ashamed to trouble you, Miss Blyth, but you said you would
be so very good as to look over my shirts some day, and see if they
are worth putting on new collars and cuffs. It's really an imposition;
any time will do, if you are busy now. I only thought, hearing your
voice--"

"There is no time like the present," said Miss Phoebe, in her most
gracious tone. "It will be a pleasure, I assure you, Doctor Strong,
to look over any portions of your wardrobe, and give you such advice
as I can. I always made my honoured father's shirts after my dear
mother's death, so I am, perhaps, not wholly unfitted for this
congenial task. Ah, machine-made!"

"Beg pardon!" said Geoffrey, who had been listening to something else.

"These shirts were made with the aid of the sewing-machine, I
perceive," said Miss Phoebe. "No--oh, no, it is nothing unusual.
Very few persons, I believe, make shirts entirely by hand in these
days. I always set the same number of stitches in my father's shirts,
five thousand and sixty. He always said that no machine larger than
a cambric needle should touch his linen."

"Then--you don't think they are worth new collars?" said Geoffrey,
abstractedly.

"Did I convey that impression?" said Miss Phoebe, with mild surprise.
"I had no such intention, Doctor Strong. I think that a skilful
person, with some knowledge of needlework, could make these garments
(though machine-made) last some months yet. You see, Doctor Strong,
if she takes this--"

It was a neat and well-sustained little oration that Miss Phoebe
delivered, emphasising her remarks with the cuff of a shirt; but it
was lost on Geoffrey Strong. He was listening to another voice that
came quavering up from the garden below, a sweet high voice, like a
wavering thread of silver. No more sobs; and Miss Vesta was singing;
the sweetest song, Geoffrey thought, that he had ever heard.




CHAPTER VI.


INFORMATION

The next day and the next Geoffrey avoided the garden as if it were
a haunt of cobras. The dining-room, too, was a place of terror to him,
and at each meal he paused before entering the room, nerving himself
for what he might have to face. This was wholly unreasonable, he
told himself repeatedly; it was ridiculous; it was--the young man
was not one to spare himself--it was unprofessional.

"Oh, yes, I know all that," he replied; "but they shouldn't cry.
There ought to be a law against their crying."

Here it occurred to him that he had seen his cousins cry many times,
and had never minded it; but that was entirely different, he said.

However, he need not distress himself, it appeared; Vesta Blyth kept
her room for several days. At first Geoffrey found it easier not to
speak of her; but the third day he pounced on Miss Vesta when she
was filling her lamp, and startled her so that she almost dropped
her scissors.

"Excuse me, Miss Vesta," he said; "what funny scissors! I shouldn't
think you could cut anything with them. I was going to ask--how is
your niece to-day? I trust the hysterical condition is passing away?"

Miss Vesta sighed. "Yes, Doctor Strong," she said. "Vesta is quiet
again, oh, yes, very quiet, and sleeping better; we are very grateful
for your interest in her."

A few professional questions and answers followed. There were no
acute or alarming symptoms. There was little to do for the girl,
except to let her rest and "come round;" she would recover in time,
but it might be a long time. Geoffrey felt somehow younger than he
had; neurasthenia was a pretty word on paper, but he did not feel so
sure about making a specialty of it.

Miss Vesta fluttered about her lamp; he became conscious that she
wanted to say something to him. She began with sundry little
plaintive murmurings, which might have been addressed to him or to
the lamp.

"Pity! pity! yes, indeed. So bright and young, so full of hope and
joy, and darkened so soon. Yes, indeed, very sad!"

Geoffrey helped her. "What is it, Miss Vesta?" he asked, tenderly.
"You are going to tell me something."

Miss Vesta looked around her timidly. "Sister Phoebe did not wish me
to mention it," she said, in a low tone. "She thinks it--indelicate.
But--you are so kind, Doctor Strong, and you are a physician. Poor
little Vesta has had a disappointment, a cruel disappointment."

Geoffrey murmured something, he hardly knew what. The little lady
hurried on. "It is not that I have any sympathy with--I never liked
the object--not at all, I assure you, Doctor Strong. But her heart
was fixed, and she had had every reason to suppose herself--it has
been a terrible blow to her. Renunciation--in youth--is a hard thing,
my dear young friend, a very hard thing."

She pressed his hand, and hurried away with her scissors, giving one
backward look to make sure that the lamp showed no aspect that did
not shine with the last touch of brilliancy.

Geoffrey Strong went down into the garden--he had not been there
since the day of the sobbing--and paced about, never thinking of the
pipe in his pocket. He found himself talking to the blue larkspur.
"Beast!" was what he called this beautiful plant. "Dolt! ass!
inhuman brute! If I had the kicking of you--" here he recovered his
silence; found pebbles to kick, and pursued them savagely up one
path and down another. A mental flash-light showed him the ruffian
who had wounded this bright creature; had led her on to love him,
and then--either betrayed his brutal nature so that hers rose up in
revolt, or--just as likely--that kind of man would do anything--gone
off and left her. His picture revealed a smart-looking person with
black hair and a waxed moustache, and complexion of feminine red and
white (Geoffrey called it beef and suet).

"The extraordinary thing is, what women see in such a fellow!" he
told the syringa. The syringa drooped, and looked sympathetic. The
hammock was hanging there still--poor little thing! Geoffrey did not
mean the hammock. He stood looking at the place, and winced as the
sobs struck his ear again; memory's ear this time, but that was
hardly less keen. How terribly she grieved! she must have cared for
him; bang! went the pebbles again.

There was a rustle behind the syringa-bush. Geoffrey looked up and
saw Vesta Blyth standing before him.

He could not run away. He must not look at her professionally.
Despair imparted to his countenance a look of stony vacuity which sat
oddly on it.

The girl looked at him, and it seemed as if the shadow of a smile
looked out of her shadowy eyes. "I thought you might be here, Doctor
Strong," she said, quietly. "I am coming in to tea to-night. I am
entirely myself again, I assure you--and first I wished--I want to
apologise to you for my absurd behaviour the other day."

"Please don't!" said Geoffrey.

"I must; I have to. I am weak, you see, and--I lost hold of myself,
that was all. It was purely hysterical, as you of course saw. I have
had--a great trouble. Perhaps my aunts may have told you."

Good God! she wasn't going to talk about it? Geoffrey thought a
subterranean dungeon would be a pleasant place.

"I--yes!" he admitted, feeling the red curling around his ears.
"Miss Vesta did say something--it's an infernal shame! I wish I
could tell you how sorry I am."

"Thank you!" said the girl; and a rich note thrilled in her voice.
Yes--it certainly was like a 'cello. "I did not know how you would--
you are very kind, Doctor Strong. Dear Aunt Vesta; she would try to
make the best of it, I know. Aunt Phoebe will not speak of it, she
is too much shocked, but Aunt Vesta is angelic."

"Indeed she is!" said the young doctor, heartily. "And she is so
pretty, too, and so soft and creamy; I never saw any one like her."

There was a moment of dreadful silence. Geoffrey sought desperately
for a subject of conversation, but the frivolous spirit of tragedy
refused to suggest anything except boots, and women never understand
boots.

The strange thing was, that the girl did not appear to find the
silence dreadful. She stood absently curling and uncurling a
syringa-leaf between her long white fingers. All the lines of her
were long, except the curl of her upper lip, and there was not an
ungraceful one among them. Her face was quietly sad, but there was
no sign of confusion in it. Good heavens! what were women made of?

Presently she turned to him, and again the shadow of a smile crept
into her eyes. "You don't ask whether I am better, Doctor Strong,"
she said; and there was even a faint suggestion of mischief in her
voice.

"No!" said Geoffrey. "I shall never ask you that again."

The shadow turned to a spark. "You might help me!" she exclaimed.
"At least you need not make it harder for me--" she checked herself,
and went on in a carefully even tone. "I am so ashamed of myself!"
she said. "I thought when I came here that I had quite got myself in
hand; the other day taught me a lesson. I was abominably rude, and I
beg your pardon."

She held out her hand frankly; Geoffrey took it, and was conscious
that, though it was too cold, it had the same quality that Miss
Vesta's hand had, a touch like rose-leaves, smooth and light and dry.
She shook hands as if she meant it, too, instead of giving a limp
flap, as some girls did. It was impossible to tell the colour of her
eyes; but she was speaking again.

"And--I want to say this, too. There isn't anything to do for me,
you know; I must just wait. But--I know how I should feel in your
place; and if there seem to be any interesting or unusual symptoms,
I will tell you--if you like?"

"Thank you!" said Geoffrey. "It would be very good of you, I'm sure."

She turned to the syringa-bush again, and breaking off a spray,
fastened it in her white gown. "You think of studying nerves, I
believe?" she said, presently. "As a specialty, I mean. Well, they
are horrible things." She spoke abruptly, and as if half to herself.
"To think of this network of treachery spreading through and through
us, lying in wait for us, leading us on, buoying us up with false
strength, sham elasticity--and then collapsing like a toy balloon,
leaving nothing but a rag, a tatter of humanity. Oh, it is shameful!
it is disgraceful! Look at me! what business have I with nerves?"

She stretched out her long arms and threw her head back. The gesture
was powerful; one saw that strength was the natural order of life
with this lithe, long-limbed creature. But the next instant she
drooped together like a tired lily.

"I know that is nonsense!" she said, moodily. "I know it just as
well as you do. I am tired; I think I'll go in now."

"Why not try the hammock?" Geoffrey suggested. "The garden is better
than the house to-day. Or--do you like the water? My canoe came
yesterday; why not come out for a short paddle?"

The girl looked at him doubtfully. "I--don't know!"

"Best thing in the world for you!" said Geoffrey, who had fully
recovered his ease, and felt benevolently professional. "You ought
to keep out-of-doors all you can. I'll get some shawls and a pillow."

Vesta looked longingly out at the water, then doubtfully again at
the young doctor. "If you are sure--" she said; "if you really have
time, Doctor Strong. Your patients--"

"Bother my patients!" said the young doctor.

An hour later, Miss Phoebe Blyth was confronting a flushed and
panting matron at the front door.

"No, Mrs. Worrett, he has not come in yet. It is past his customary
hour, but he has been detained, no doubt, by some urgent case.
Doctor Strong never spares himself. I fear for him sometimes, I must
confess. Will you step in and wait, or shall I--colic? oh! if that
is all, it will hardly be necessary to send the doctor out. I shall
take the liberty of giving you a bottle of my checkerberry cordial.
I have made it for forty years, and Doctor Strong approves of it
highly. Give the baby half a teaspoonful in a wine-glass of hot water,
and repeat the dose in an hour if not relieved. Not at all, I beg of
you, Mrs. Worrett. It is a pleasure to be able to relieve the babe,
as well as to spare Doctor Strong a little. He comes in quite
exhausted sometimes from these long trips. Good evening to you, ma'am."




CHAPTER VII.


FESTIVITY

The Ladies' Society was to meet at the Temple of Vesta; or, rather
(since that name for the brick house was known only to the old and
the young doctor), at the Blyth Girls'. The sisters always
entertained the society once a year, and it was apt to be the
favourite meeting of the season. It was the peaceful pastime of two
weeks, for Miss Phoebe and Miss Vesta, to prepare for the annual
festivity, by polishing the already shining house to a hardly
imaginable point of brilliant cleanliness. In the kitchen of the
Temple, Diploma Grotty ruled supreme, as she had ruled for twenty
years. Miss Phoebe was occasionally permitted to trifle with a jelly
or a cream, but even this was upon sufferance; while if Miss Vesta
ever had any culinary aspirations, they were put down with a high
hand, and an injunction not to meddle with them things, but see
to her parlours and her chaney. This injunction, backed by her
own spotless ideals, was faithfully carried out by Miss Vesta.
Miss Phoebe, by right of her position as elder sister and martyr to
rheumatism (though she sometimes forgot her martyrdom in these days),
took charge of the upper class of preparation; examined the lace
curtains in search of a possible stitch dropped in the net,
"did up" the frilled linen bags that formed the decent clothing of
the window-tassels, the tidies, and the entire stock of "laces"
owned by her and her sister. One could never be sure beforehand which
collar one would want to wear when the evening came, and while one
was about it, it was as well to do them all; so for many days the
sewing-room was adorned with solemn bottles swathed in white, on
which collars, cuffs, and scarfs were delicately stitched. Miss
Vesta--cleaned.

For some days the young doctor had been conscious of a stronger
odour than usual of beeswax and rosin. Also, the tiny room by the
front door, which was sacred as his office, began to shine with a
kind of inward light. No one was ever there when he came in,--no one,
that is, save the occasional patient,--but he always found that his
papers had assembled themselves in orderly piles on the table where
he was wont to throw them; that the table itself had become so glossy
that things slipped about or fell off whenever he moved them; and
that no matter where he left his pipes, he always found them ranged
with exact symmetry on the mantel-shelf. (If he could have known the
affectionate terror with which those delicate white old fingers
touched the brown, fragrant, masculine things! There were four of
the pipes, Zuleika, Haidee, Nourmahal, and Scheherezade; the fellows
used to call them his harem, and him Haroun Alraschid.)

Geoffrey was always careful about wiping his feet when he came in;
he was a well-brought-up lad, and never meant to leave a speck on
the polished floor. Now, however, he was aware of fragrant, newly
rubbed spots that appeared as if by magic every time he returned
through the entry after passing along it. Several times he saw a
gray gown flutter and disappear through a doorway; but it might have
been Diploma.

One day, however,--it was the very day of the party,--he chanced to
come into the parlour for a match or the like, and found Miss Vesta
on her knees, apparently praying to one of the teak-wood chairs; and
the girl Vesta, white as wax, standing beside another, rubbing it
with even, practised strokes. The young doctor looked from one to
the other.

"What does this mean?" he said. "What upon earth are you doing, you
two?"

Miss Vesta looked up, pink and breathless.

"My dear Doctor Strong, I wish you would use your professional
influence with Vesta. I am making a little preparation, as you see,
for this evening. It--I take pleasure in it, and find the exercise
beneficial. But Vesta is entirely unfit for it, as I have repeatedly
pointed out to her. She persists--" the little lady paused for breath.
The young doctor took the cloth from the girl's hand, and opened the
door.

"You would better go and lie down, Miss Blyth," he said, abruptly.
"I'll see to this--" he said "tomfoolery," but not aloud.

The colour crept into Vesta's white cheeks, the first he had seen
there. "I don't want to lie down, thank you!" she said, coldly.
"Give me the cloth, please!"

Their eyes measured swords for an instant. Then--

"You can hardly stand now," said Geoffrey, quietly. "If you faint I
shall have to carry you up-stairs, and that--"

She was gone, but he still saw her face like a white flame. He
looked after her a moment, then turned to Miss Vesta, who was still
on her knees. His look of annoyance changed to one of distress.
"Dear Miss Vesta, will you please get up this moment? What can you
be doing? Are you praying to Saint Beeswax?"

"Oh, no, Doctor Strong. We never--the Orthodox Church--but you are
jesting, my dear young friend. I--a little healthful exercise--oh,
please, Doctor Geoffrey!"

For two strong hands lifted her bodily, and set her down in her own
particular armchair. "Exercise is recommended for me," said the
little lady, piteously. "You yourself, Doctor Geoffrey, said I ought
to take more exercise."

"So you shall. You shall dance all the evening, if you like. I'll
play the fiddle, and you and the minister--no, no, I don't mean the
minister! Don't look like that! you and Deacon Weight shall dance
together. It will be the elephant and the fl--butterfly. But I am
going to do this, Miss Vesta."

He in turn went down on his knees to the teak-wood chair, and
examined it curiously. "Is this--supposed to need cleaning?" he asked;
"or is it to be used as a looking-glass? Perhaps you had just
finished this one?" He looked hopefully at Miss Vesta, and saw her
face cloud with distress.

"I was about to polish it a little," she said. "It is already clean,
in a measure, but a little extra polish on such occasions--"

Geoffrey did not wait for more, but rubbed away with might and main,
talking the while.

"You see, Miss Vesta, it is very important for me to learn about
these things. You and Miss Phoebe may turn me out some day, and then
the lonely bachelor will have to set up his own establishment, and
cook his own dinner, and polish his own chairs. Do you think I could
cook a dinner? I'll tell you what we'll do, some day; we'll send
Diploma off for a holiday, and I'll get the dinner."

"Oh, my dear young friend, I fear that would not be possible.
Diploma is so set in her ways! She will hardly let me set foot in
the kitchen, but Sister Phoebe goes in whenever she pleases. I--I
think that chair is as bright as it _can_ be, Doctor Strong. I am
greatly obliged to you. It looks beautiful, and now I need not
trouble you further; you are much occupied, I am sure. Oh, pray--pray
give me back the cloth, Doctor Geoffrey."

But Geoffrey declared he had not had such fun for weeks. "Consider
my biceps," he said. "You ought to consider my biceps, Miss Vesta."

He went from chair to chair, Miss Vesta following him with little
plaintive murmurs, in which distress and admiration were equally
blended; and rubbed, and rubbed again, till all the room was full of
dark glory. There was one bad moment, when the weak leg of the
three-cornered table threatened to give way under his vigorous attack,
and protested with a sharp squeak of anguish; but though Geoffrey
and Miss Vesta both examined it with searching scrutiny, no new
crack was visible. He offered to bandage the old crack, warranting
to make the ailing leg the strongest of the four; but, on the whole,
it did not seem necessary.

"If only Deacon Weight does not lean on it!" said Miss Vesta.
"Perhaps you could manage to stand near it yourself, Doctor Geoffrey,
if you should see the deacon approaching it. He is apt, when engaged
in conversation, to rest both elbows on a table; it is a great
strain on any furniture."

Geoffrey looked a little blank. "Were you expecting me to join the
party?" he asked; "I thought--I should be rather in the way,
shouldn't I?" He read his answer in the piteous startled look of the
little lady, and hastened on before she could speak. "I didn't
suppose I was invited, Miss Vesta. Of course I shall come, if I may,
with the greatest pleasure."

"Dear Doctor Strong," said Miss Vesta, with a happy sigh, "it would
have been such a sad blow if we must have dispensed with your society."

It would indeed have been a tragic disappointment to both sisters if
their lodger had not appeared on the great occasion. As it was,
Miss Vesta was fluttered, and only restored to full composure when,
at tea, Doctor Strong begged to know the exact hour at which the
guests were expected, that he might be ready on time.

The pride of the good ladies knew no bounds when Doctor Strong
entered the parlour in faultless evening dress, with a tiny
blush-rose, from Miss Vesta's favourite tree, in his buttonhole.
Evening dress was becoming to Geoffrey. The Ladies' Society
fluttered at sight of him, and primmed itself, and shook out its
skirts.

Geoffrey's face was radiant over his white tie. He had planned a
cozy evening in his own room, with a new treatise on orthopaedics
that had just come; but no one would have thought that he took
delight in anything except Society meetings. He went from group to
group, as if he were the son of the house, cheering the forlorn,
lightening the heavy, smoothing down the prickly,--a medical Father
O'Flynn. But it was the elderly and the middle-aged that he sought
out; the matrons whose children he had tended, the spinsters whose
neuralgia he had relieved. The few younger members of the Society
bridled and simpered in vain; the young doctor never looked their way.

"Good evening, Mrs. Worrett; sorry I missed you the other day; but
Miss Blyth prescribed for you, and she is as good a doctor as I am,
any day. How _is_ the baby now? quite well! Good; Yes; oh, yes,
excellent. In simple cases these mild carminatives are just the thing.
Keep his diet steady, though, while the warm weather lasts. I saw him
with a doughnut the other day, and took it away from him; knew he
got it by accident, of course. Yes, bread and milk, that kind of
thing. Fine little fellow, and we want him to have the best chance
there is.

"Miss Wax, I am glad to see you here. Headache all gone, eh? Hurrah!
I'd keep on with those powders, though, if I were you, for a week or
two. You're looking fine, as the Scotch say. Hope you won't want to
see me again for a long time, and it's very good and unselfish of me
to say that, for I haven't forgotten the plum-cake you gave me.

"How do you do, Deacon? glad to see you! yes, glorious weather."
Here Geoffrey moved easily between Deacon Weight and the
three-cornered table, which the deacon was approaching. "Suppose we
stand here in the corner a moment! Men are always rather in the way,
don't you think, at things of this kind? Mrs. Weight here to-night?
ah! yes, I see her. How well she's looking! Not been well yourself,
Deacon? I'm sorry to hear that. What's the--dyspepsia again? that's
bad. Have you tried the light diet I recommended? Well, I would, if
I were in your place. I'd knock off two or three pounds of your
usual diet, and get a bicycle--yes, you could. A cousin of mine in
New York weighed three hundred pounds before he got his bicycle; had
one made to order, of course, special weight; now he weighs a
hundred and seventy-five, and is as active as a cat. Great thing! ah,
excuse me, Deacon!"

He crossed the room, and bowed low before a lady with white hair and
an amazing cap, who had been gazing at him with twinkling eyes. This
was Mrs. Tree, the Misses Blyths' aunt.

"Mrs. Tree, how do you do? why were you looking at me in that way?
I've been trying to speak to you all the evening, but you have been
surrounded. I think it's a shame for a women over twenty-five"
(Mrs. Tree was ninety, and immensely proud of her age) "to
monopolise all the attention. What do you think?"

"I think you're a sassy boy!" replied Mrs. Tree, with vivacity.
"I think children should speak when they're spoken to; that's what I
think."

She clicked some castanets in her throat, which was her way of
laughing.

"But you didn't speak to me," said Geoffrey. "You wouldn't speak. Do
you suppose I was going to wait all the evening? What a wonderful
cap you've got, Mrs. Tree! I'm going to have one made exactly like it.
Will you go in to supper with me? Do! I want to cut out the minister,
and he is coming to ask you now. I am much more amusing than he is,
you know I am."

Mrs. Tree did know it. The minister was waved off, and the oldest
parishioner sailed in to supper on Doctor Strong's arm.

"Why don't you get married," she asked on the way, "instead of
fooling around old folks this way? If I was your ma'am, I'd find a
wife for ye, first thing I did. You're too sassy to stay unmarried."

"Miss Vesta won't have me," said Geoffrey; "and I won't have anybody
else, unless you will relent, Mrs. Tree. Now, what do you want?
lobster salad? Well, I shall not give you that. If you eat it you
will be ill tomorrow, and then Direxia will send for me, and you
will throw my medicine out of the window and get well without it,
and then laugh in my face. I know you! have some escalloped oysters,
there's a dear!"

"I wish't I'd come in with the minister now!" said Mrs. Tree.

"I don't believe a word of it!" said Geoffrey. "It's much less
dangerous for you to flirt with me, you know it is; though even now
Miss Phoebe is looking at us very seriously, Mrs. Tree, very
seriously indeed."

"If I was Phoebe, I'd send you to bed!" said Mrs. Tree. "That's what
I'd do!"




CHAPTER VIII.


REVELATION

It was a perfect evening. The water lay like rosy glass under the
sinking sun. Not a breath of air was stirring, and even on the beach
the ripple did not break, merely whispered itself away in foam. The
canoe moved easily, when it did move, under a practised stroke, but
much of the time it lay at ease, rocking a little now and then as a
swell rose and melted under it. Vesta lay among her pillows at one
end, and Geoffrey faced her. Her face was turned toward the west,
and he wondered whether it was only the sunset glow that touched it,
or whether the faint rosy flush belonged there. Certainly the waxen
hue was gone; certainly the girl was wonderfully better. But he did
not look at her much, because it got into his breathing somehow. He
had not been paddling for a year, and he was "soft," of course;
nothing surprising in that.

He was telling her about some of his patients. The thing that did
surprise him was the interest she seemed to take; active,
intelligent interest. Being sick herself, perhaps, gave her a
natural sympathy; and she certainly had extraordinary intelligence,
even insight. Singular thing for a girl to have!

"But what became of the poor little fellow? did he live? better not,
I am sure. I hope he did not."

"Yes; almost a pity, but he did live. Got well, too, after a fashion,
but he'll never be able to do anything."

The girl was silent. Presently--"I wonder whether it is worth while
to get well after a fashion!" she said. "I wonder if it's worth
while to go on living and never be able to do anything. I suppose I
shall find out."

"You!" said the young doctor. "You will be entirely well in a year,
Miss Blyth; I'd be willing to wager it."

Vesta shook her head.

"No!" she said. "The spring is broken. There is nothing _real_ the
matter with me, I know that well enough. It's nothing but nerves--
and heart, and mind; nothing but the whole of my life broken and
thrown aside."

She spoke bitterly, and Geoffrey felt a pang of compassion. She was
so young, and so pretty--beautiful was the word, rather. It seemed
too cruel. If only she would not say anything more about it! How
_could_ she? was it because he was a physician? He would go and be
a costermonger if that--

"You see," she went on, slowly; "I cared so tremendously. I had
thought of nothing else for years, dreamed of nothing else. All there
was of me went into it. And then, then--when this came; when he told
me--I--it was pretty hard."

The quiver in her voice was controlled instantly, but it was almost
worse than the sobs. Geoffrey broke out, fiercely:

"I don't know whether this man is more a beast or a devil; but I
know that he is not fit to live, and I wish I--"

Vesta looked up at him in surprise. His face was crimson; his angry
eyes looked beyond her, above her, anywhere except at her.

"I don't know what you mean!" she said. "He was neither. He was kind,
oh, very kind. He did it as tenderly as possible. I shall always be
grateful--" the quiver came again, and she stopped.

"Oh!" cried Geoffrey. He drove his paddle savagely into the water,
and the canoe leaped forward. What were women made of? why, _why_
must he be subjected to this?

The silence that followed was almost worse than the speech. Finally
he stole a glance at his companion, and saw her face still faintly
rosy--it must be mostly the light--and set in a sadness that had no
touch of resentment in it.

"Perhaps you don't like my talking about it," she said, after awhile.

Geoffrey uttered an inarticulate murmur, but found no words.

"The aunties don't. Aunt Phoebe gets angry, and Aunt Vesta tearful
and embarrassed. But--well, I could not stay at home. Everything
there reminded me--I thought if I came here, where no such ideas
ever entered, I might begin--not to forget, but to resign myself a
little, after a time. But--I found you here. No, let me speak!" She
raised her hand, as Geoffrey tried to interrupt.

"I have to make you understand--if I can--why I was rude and odious
and ungrateful when I first came, for I was all those things, and I
am not naturally so, I truly don't think I am. But, don't you see?--
to come right upon some one who was having all that I had lost,
enjoying all I had hoped to enjoy, and caring--well, perhaps as much
as I cared, but still in a different way, a man's way, taking it all
as a matter of course, where I would have taken it on my knees--"

"You must let me speak now, Miss Blyth," said Geoffrey Strong. He
spoke loud and quickly, to drown the noise in his ears.

"I cannot let you--go on--under such a total misapprehension. I
could not in a lifetime say how sorry I am for your cruel trouble.
It makes me rage; I'd like to--never mind that now! but you are
wholly mistaken in thinking that anything of the kind has ever come
into my own life. I don't know how you received the impression, but
you must believe me when I say I have never had any--any such affair,
nor the shadow of one. It isn't my line. I not only never have had,
but probably never shall have--" he was hurrying out word upon word,
hoping to get it over and done with once and for ever. But letting
his eyes drop for an instant to the girl's face, he saw on it a look
of such unutterable amazement that he stopped short in his headlong
speech.

They gazed at each other from alien worlds. At length--"Doctor Strong,"
said Vesta, and the words dropped slowly, one by one, "what do you
mean?"

Geoffrey was silent. If she did not know what he meant, he certainly
did not.

"What do you mean?" she repeated. "I do not understand one word of
what you are saying."

Geoffrey tried hard to keep his temper. "You were speaking of your--
disappointment," he said, stiffly. "You seemed to take it for
granted that I--was engaged in some affair of a similar nature, and
I felt bound to undeceive you. I have never been what is called in
love in my life."

The bewilderment lingered in Vesta's eyes for an instant; then a
light came into them. The sunset rushed in one crimson wave over
face and neck and brow; she fell back on her pillows, quivering from
head to foot. Was she going to cry again?

She was laughing! silently at first, trying hard to control herself;
but now her laughter broke forth in spite of her, and peal after peal
rang out, wild and sweet, helpless in its intensity.

Geoffrey sat paralysed a moment; then the professional instinct awoke.
"Hysteria! another manifestation, that is all. I must stop it."

He leaned forward.

"Miss Blyth!"

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the girl. "Oh, dear, oh, dear! what shall I do?
ha, ha, ha, ha! oh, what shall I do?"

"Stop!" said Geoffrey Strong. "Do you hear me? stop!"

"Oh, yes, I hear you--but--it is so funny! oh, it _is_ so funny! ha,
ha, ha! what shall I do?"

"What shall _I_ do?" said Geoffrey to himself. "She'll have the
canoe over in another minute." He crept toward the girl, and seized
her wrists in a firm grip.

"Be still!" he said. "I shall hold you until you are quiet. Be--still!
no more! be still!"

"You--hurt me!" whispered the girl. The wild laughter had died away,
but she was still shaking, and the tears were running down her cheeks.

"I mean to hurt you. I shall hurt you more, if you are not quiet. As
soon as you are quiet I will let you go. Be--still--still--there!"

He loosed her hands, and took up the paddle again. This kind of
thing was very exhausting; he was quivering himself, quite
perceptibly. Now why? nerves of sympathy?

He paddled on in silence; the sun went down, and the afterglow
spread and brightened along the sky. He hardly thought of his
companion, his whole mind bent on suppressing the turmoil that was
going on in himself.

He started at the sound of her voice; it was faint, but perfectly
controlled.

"Doctor Strong!"

"Miss Blyth!"

"You--thought--I had had a disappointment in love?"

"I did!"

"You are mistaken. You misunderstood my aunt, or me, or both. I have
never, any more than you--"

Her voice grew stronger, and she sat upright.

"It was so _very_ funny--no, I am not going off again--but I think
there was some excuse for me this time. You certainly are having
every opportunity of studying my case, Doctor Strong. The truth is--
oh, I supposed it had been made clear to you; how could I suppose
anything else? It was my career, my life, that I had to give up, not--
not a man. You say you have never been what is called in love;
Doctor Strong, no more have I!"

There was silence, and now it was in Geoffrey's face that the tide
rose. Such a burning tide it was, he fancied he heard the blood hiss
as it curled round the roots of his hair. He noted this as curious,
and remembered that in hanging or drowning it was the trifles that
stamped themselves upon the mind. Also, it appeared that he was
hollow, with nothing but emptiness where should have been his vital
parts.

"Shall I say anything?" he asked, presently. "There isn't anything
to say, is there, except to beg your pardon? would you like to hear
that I am a fool? But you know that already. Your aunt--things were
said that were curiously misleading--not that that is any excuse--Do
you want me to go into detail, or may I drown myself quietly?"

"Oh! don't," said Vesta, smiling. "I could not possibly paddle
myself home, and I should infallibly upset the canoe in trying to
rescue you."

"You would not try!" said Geoffrey, gloomily. "It would not be human
if you tried."

"It would be professional," said Vesta. "Come, Doctor Strong, you
see I can laugh about it, and you must laugh, too. Let us shake hands,
and agree to forget all about it."

Geoffrey shook hands, and said she was very magnanimous; but he
still felt hollow. The only further remark that his seething brain
presented was a scrap of ancient doggerel:

  "I wish I was dead,
  Or down at Owl's Head,
  Or anywhere else but here!"

This was manifestly inappropriate, so he kept silence, and paddled
on doggedly.

"And aren't you going to ask what my disappointment really was?"
inquired Vesta, presently. "But perhaps you have guessed?"

No, Geoffrey had not guessed.

"Don't you want to know? I should really--it would be a comfort to
me to talk it over with you, if you don't mind."

Geoffrey would be delighted to hear anything that she chose to tell
him.

"Yes, you seem delighted. Well--you see, you have not understood,
not understood in the very least; and now in a moment you are going
to know all about it." She paused for a moment, and there was an
appeal in her clear, direct gaze; but Geoffrey did not want to be
appealed to.

"I was at Johns Hopkins," said Vesta. "It was the beginning of my
second year; I broke down, and had to give it up. I was studying
medicine myself, Doctor Strong."

"Oh!" cried Geoffrey Strong.

The exclamation was a singular one; a long cry of amazement and
reprobation. Every fibre of the man stiffened, and he sat rigid, a
statue of Disapproval.

"I beg your pardon!" he said, after a moment. "I said it before, but
I don't know that there is anything else to say. No doubt I was very
stupid, yet I hardly know how I could have supposed just this to be
the truth. I--no! I beg your pardon. That is all."

The girl looked keenly at him. "You are not sorry for me any more,
are you?" she said.

Geoffrey was silent.

"You were sorry, very sorry!" she went on. "So long as you thought I
had lost that precious possession, a lover; had lost the divine
privilege of--what is the kind of thing they say? merging my life in
another's, becoming the meek and gentle helpmeet of my God-given
lord and master--you were very sorry. I could not make it out; it
was so unlike what I expected from you. It was so human, so kind, so--
yes, so womanlike. But the moment you find it is not a man, but only
the aspiration of a lifetime, the same aspiration that in you is
right and fitting and beautiful--you--you sit there like a--lamp-post--
and disapprove of me."

"I am sorry!" said Geoffrey. He was trying hard to be reasonable,
and said to himself that he would not be irritated, come what might.
"I cannot approve of women studying medicine, but I am sorry for you,
Miss Blyth."

Her face, which had been bitter enough in its set and scornful beauty,
suddenly melted into a bewildering softness of light and laughter.
She leaned forward. "But it was funny!" she said. "It was very, very
funny, Doctor Strong, you must admit that. You were so compassionate,
so kind, thinking me--"

"Do you think perhaps--but never mind! you certainly have the right
to say whatever you choose," said Geoffrey, holding himself carefully.

"And all the time," she went on, "I utterly unconscious, and only
fretting because I could not have my own life, my own will, my own
way!"

"By Jove!" said Geoffrey, starting. "That--that's what I say myself!"

"Really!" said Vesta, dryly. "You see I also am human, after all"

"Do you see little Vesta anywhere, sister?" asked Miss Phoebe Blyth.

Miss Vesta had just lighted her lamp, and was standing with folded
hands, in her usual peaceful attitude of content, gazing out upon
the sunset sea. A black line lay out there on the rosy gold of the
water; she had been watching it, watching the rhythmic flash of the
paddle, and thinking happy, gentle thoughts, such as old ladies of
tender heart often think. Miss Phoebe had no part in these thoughts,
and Miss Vesta looked hurriedly round at the sound of her crisp
utterance. Her breath fluttered a little, but she did not speak.
Miss Phoebe came up behind her and peered out of the window.
"I don't see where the child can be," she said, rather querulously.
"I thought she was in the garden, but I don't--do you see her
anywhere, Vesta?"

Miss Vesta had never read the "Pickwick Papers;" she considered
Dickens vulgar; but her conduct at this moment resembled that of
Samuel Weller on a certain noted occasion. Raising her eyes to the
twilight sky, Miss Vesta said, gently, "No, Sister Phoebe, I do not!"




CHAPTER IX.


SIDE LIGHTS

  ELMERTON, June 20, 1900.

  DEAR JIM:--It is rather curious that you
  should have written me this particular letter at this
  particular time. 'Give me a man's coincidences
  and I'll give you his life!' Who is it says that?

  You want my opinion about women's studying
  medicine; you personally have reason to think that
  the career of medicine is not incompatible with true
  womanliness, exquisite refinement, perfect grace and
  breeding. I really cannot copy your whole letter. The
  symptoms are, alas, only too familiar! You have met
  your Fate again (and those foolish old Greeks used
  to believe there were only three of 'em!) and she
  is a doctor, or is going to be one. Well--it's curious,
  as I said, for it happens that I have been thinking
  more or less about the same matter. I used to feel
  very strongly about it--hang it, I still feel very
  strongly about it! A girl doesn't know what she is
  doing when she goes into medicine. I grant that
  she does it, in many cases, from the highest possible
  motives. I grant that she is far ahead of most men
  in her ideas of the profession, and what it means, or
  ought to mean. But, all the same, she doesn't know
  what she is going in for, and I cannot conceive of a
  man's letting any woman he cares for go on with
  it. She must lose something; she must, I tell you;
  she cannot help it. And even if it isn't the essential
  things, still it changes her. She is less woman,
  less--whatever you choose to call it. A coarser
  touch has come upon her, and she is changed. Well,
  I say I believe all this, and I do, with all my soul;
  and yet, as you say, it's cruel hard for a young creature,
  all keyed up to a pitch of enthusiasm and
  devotion and noble aspiration, to be checked like a
  boy's kite, and brought down to the ground and told
  to mind her seam. It's cruel hard, I can see that;
  I can feel and sympathise intensely with all that
  part of it, and honour the purpose and the spirit,
  even though I cannot approve of the direction.

  Oh, glancing at your letter again, I see that in
  your friend's case everything seems to be going on
  smoothly. Well, the principle remains the same. I
  suppose--I seem to have drifted away from your
  question, somehow--I suppose one woman in ten
  thousand _may_ make a good physician. I suppose
  that this ten-thousandth woman--a woman who is
  all that you say--may be justified, perhaps, in
  becoming a physician; whether a woman physician
  can _remain_ all that you say--ah! that is the question!
  Man alive, am I Phoebus Apollo, that I should
  know the answers to all the questions? I wish I
  could find the way to Delphi myself.

  But don't get the idea that you bore me with
  your confidences, old man. Did I say so? on the
  contrary, tell me all you can; it interests me extremely.
  I am thinking about these matters--pathologically--a
  good deal. A physician has to, of
  course. Tell me how you feel, how it takes you.
  Do you find it gets into your breathing sometimes,
  like rarefied air? Curious sensation, rarefied air--I
  remember it on Mont Blanc.

  What am I doing? Man, I am practising medicine!
  Cases at present, one typhoid, two tonsilitis,
  five measles, eight dyspepsia, six rheumatism, _et id
  gen om._, one cantankerousness (she calls it depression),
  one gluttony, one nerves. Pretty busy, but
  my wheel keeps me in good trim. I have been
  paddling more or less, too, to keep chest and arms
  up with the rest of the procession.

  The old ladies are as dear as ever; if I am not
  wholly spoilt, it will not be their fault, bless their
  kind hearts! The niece is better, I think.

  Good-bye, old man! write again soon, and tell
  me more about Amaryllis. How pretty the classical
  names are: Chloe, Lalage, Diana, Vesta. I was
  brought up on Fannies and Minnies and Lotties,
  with Eliza for a change. Horrible name, Eliza!

     GEOFF.

The young doctor had just posted the above letter, and was
sauntering along the street on his way home. It lacked an hour of
tea-time, and he was wondering which of several things he should do.
There was hardly time for a paddle; besides, Vesta Blyth had gone
for a drive with the minister's daughter. Geoffrey did not think
driving half as good for her as being on the water. He must contrive
to get through his afternoon calls earlier to-morrow. He might stop
and see how Tommy Candy was,--no! there was Tommy, sitting by the
roadside, pouring sand over his head from a tin cup. He was all right,
then; the young doctor thought he would be if they stopped dosing him,
and fed him like a Christian for a day or two. Well,--there was no
one else who could not wait till morning. Why should he not go and
call on Mrs. Tree? here he was at the house. It was the hour when in
cities the sophisticated clustered about five o'clock tea-tables,
and tested the comfort of various chairs, and indulged in talk as
thin as the china and bread and butter. Five o'clock tea was unknown
in Elmerton, but Mrs. Tree would be glad to see him, and he always
enjoyed a crack with her.

He turned in at the neat gate. The house stood well back from the
street, in the trimmest and primmest little garden that ever was seen.
Most of the shrubs were as old as their owner, and had something
of her wrinkled sprightliness; and the annuals felt their
responsibilities, and tried to live up to the York and Lancaster
rose and the strawberry bush.

The door was opened by a Brownie, disguised in a cap and apron. This
was Direxia Hawkes, aunt to Diploma Grotty. In his mind Geoffrey had
christened the little house the Aunt's Nest, but he never dared to
tell anybody this.

"Well, Direxia, how is Mrs. Tree to-day? would she like to see me,
do you think?"

"She ain't no need to see you!"

The young doctor looked grieved, and turned away.

"But I expect she'd be pleased to. Step in!"

This was Direxia's one joke, and she never tired of it; no more did
Geoffrey. He entered the cool dim parlour, which smelt of red cedar;
the walls were panelled with it. The floor was of polished oak, dark
with age; the chairs and tables were of rare foreign woods, satin
and leopard wood, violet-wood and ebony. The late Captain Tree had
been a man of fancy, and, sailing on many seas, never forgot his name,
but bought precious woods wherever he found them.

"Here's the doctor!" said Direxia. "I expect he'll keep right on
coming till he finds you sick."

"That's what he will do!" said Geoffrey. "No chance for me to-day,
though, I see. How do you do, Mrs. Tree? I think it is hardly
respectable for you to look so well. Can't you give me one little
symptom? not a tiny crick in your back? you ought to have one,
sitting in that chair."

Mrs. Tree was sitting bolt upright in an ancient straight-backed
chair of curious workmanship. It was too high for her, so her little
feet, of which she was inordinately vain, rested on a hassock of
crimson tapestry. She wore white silk stockings, and slippers of
cinnamon-coloured satin to match her gown. A raffled black silk apron,
a net kerchief pinned with a quaint diamond brooch, and a cap
suggesting the Corinthian Order, completed her costume. Her face was
netted close with fine wrinkles, but there was no sign of age in her
bright dark eyes.

"Never you trouble yourself about my cheer!" said the old lady with
some severity. "Sit down in one yourself--there are plenty of
lolloping ones if your back's weak--and tell me what mischief you
have been up to lately. I wouldn't trust you round the corner."

"You'll break my heart some day," said Geoffrey, with a heavy sigh;
"and then you will be sorry, Mrs. Tree. Mischief? Let me see! I set
Jim Arthur's collar-bone this morning; do you care about Jim Arthur?
he fell off his bicycle against a stone wall."

"Serve him right, too!" said Mrs. Tree. "Riding that nasty thing,
running folks down and scaring their horses. I'd put 'em all in the
bonfire-pile if I was Town Council. Your turn will come some day,
young man, for all you go spinning along like a spool of cotton.
How's the girls?"

She rang the bell, and Direxia appeared.

"Bring the cake and sherry!" she said. "It's a shame to spoil boys,
but when they're spoilt already, there's less harm done. How's the
girls?"

Geoffrey reported a clean bill of health, so far as Miss Phoebe and
Miss Vesta were concerned. "I really am proud of Miss Phoebe!" he
said. "She says she feels ten years younger than she did three
months ago, and I think it's true."

"Phoebe has no call to feel ten years younger!" said Mrs. Tree,
shortly. "She's a very suitable age as it is. I don't like to see a
cat play kitten, any more than I like to see a kitten play cat.
How's the child?"

"I should like to see Miss Phoebe playing kitten!" said Geoffrey,
his eyes dancing. "It would be something to remember. What child,
Mrs. Tree?"

"The little girl; little Vesta. Is she coming out of her tantrums,
think?"

"She--is a great deal better, certainly," said Geoffrey. "I hope--I
feel sure that she will recover entirely in time. But you must not
call her trouble tantrums, Mrs. Tree, really. Neurasthenia is a
recognised form of--"

"You must have looked quite pretty when you was short-coated!" said
the old lady, irrelevantly. "Have some wine? the cake is too rich
for you, but you may have just a crumb."

"You must have been the wickedest thing alive when you were eighteen!"
said Geoffrey, pouring out the amber sherry into a wonderful gilt
glass. "I wish Direxia would stay in the room and matronise me; I'm
afraid, I tell you."

"If Direxia had nothing better to do, I'd send her packing," said
Mrs. Tree. "Here!"

They touched glasses solemnly.

"Wishing you luck in a wife!" said the old lady.

"Good gracious!" cried Geoffrey.

"It's what you need, young man, and you'd better be looking out for
one. There must be some one would have you, and any wife is better
than none."

She looked up, though not at Geoffrey, and a twinkle came into her
eyes. "Do you call little Vesta pretty, now?" she asked.

"Not pretty," said Geoffrey; "that is not the word. I--"

"Then you'd better not call her anything," said Mrs. Tree, "for
she's in the door behind ye."

Geoffrey started violently, and turned around. Vesta was standing
framed in the dark doorway. The clear whiteness of her beauty had
never seemed more wonderful. The faint rose in her cheeks only made
the white more radiant; her eyes were no longer agate-like, but soft
and full of light; only her smile remained the same, shadowy, elusive,
a smile in a dream.

When the young doctor remembered his manners and rose to his feet--
after all, it was only a moment or two--he saw that Miss Vesta was
standing behind her niece, a little gray figure melting into the
gloom of the twilight hall. The two now entered the room together.

"Aunt Vesta wanted you to see my new hat, Aunt Tree," said the girl.
"Do you like it?"

"Yes!" said Miss Vesta, coming forward timidly. "Good evening, Aunt
Marcia. Oh, good evening to you, Doctor Strong. The hat seemed to me
so pretty, and you are always so kindly interested, Aunt Marcia! I
ought to apologise to you, Doctor Strong, for introducing such a
subject."

"Vesta, don't twitter!" said Mrs. Tree. "Is there anything improper
about the hat? It's very well, child, very well. I always liked a
scoop myself, but folks don't know much nowadays. What do you think
of it, young man?"

Geoffrey thought it looked like a lunar halo, but he did not say so;
he said something prim and conventional about its being very pretty
and becoming.

"Are you going to sit down?" asked Mrs. Tree. "I can't abide to see
folks standing round as if they was hat-poles."

Miss Vesta slipped into a seat, but the younger Vesta shook her head.

"I must go on!" she said. "Aunt Phoebe is expecting a letter, and I
must tell her that there is none."

"Yes, dear, yes!" said Miss Vesta. "Your Aunt Phoebe will be
impatient, doubtless; you are right. And perhaps it will be best for
me, too--" she half rose, but Mrs. Tree pulled her down again
without ceremony.

"You stay here, Vesta!" she commanded. "I want to see you. But you"--
she turned to Geoffrey, who had remained standing--"can go along
with the child, if you're a mind to. You'll get nothing more out of
me, I tell ye."

"I am going to send you a measles bacillus to-morrow morning," said
the young doctor. "You must take it in your coffee, and then you
will want to see me every day. Good-bye, Mrs. Tree! some day you
will be sorry for your cruelty. Miss Vesta--till tea-time!"

Aunt and niece watched the young couple in silence as they walked
along the street. Both walked well; it was a pleasure to see them
move. He was tall enough to justify the little courteous bend of the
head, but not enough to make her anxious about the top of her hat--
if she ever had such anxieties.

"Well!" said Mrs. Tree, suddenly.

Miss Vesta started. "Yes, dear Aunt Marcia!" she said. "Yes,
certainly; I am here."

"They make a pretty couple, don't they?" said the old lady.
"If she would come out of her tantrums,--hey, Vesta?"

"Oh, Aunt Marcia!" said Miss Vesta, softly. She blushed very pink,
and looked round the room with a furtive, frightened glance.

"No, there's no one behind the sofa," said Mrs. Tree; "and there's
no one under the big chair, and Phoebe is safe at home with her
knitting, and the best place for her." (Mrs. Tree did not "get on"
with her niece Phoebe.) "There's no use in looking like a scared
pigeon, Vesta Blyth. I say they make a pretty couple, and I say they
would make a pretty couple coming out of church together. I'd give
her my Mechelin flounces; you'll never want 'em."

"Oh, Aunt Marcia!" said dear Miss Vesta, clasping her soft hands.
"If it might be the Lord's will--"

"The Lord likes to be helped along once in a while!" said Mrs. Tree.
"Don't tell me! I wasn't born yesterday." And this statement was not
to be controverted.




CHAPTER X.


OVER THE WAY

"Deacon," said Mrs. Weight, "Mis' Tree is sick!"

"Now, reelly!" said the deacon. "Is that so?"

"It is so. She sent for Doctor Strong this morning. I saw Direxia go
out, and she was gone just the len'th of time to go to the girls'
and back. Pretty soon he came, riding like mad on that wheel thing
of his. He stayed 'most an hour, and came out with a face a yard long.
I expect it's her last sickness, don't you?"

"Mebbe so!" said the deacon, dubiously. "Mis' Tree has had a long
life; she'd oughter be prepared; I trust she is. She has always
loved the world's things, but I trust she is. Ain't this ruther a
slim dinner, Viny? I was looking for a boiled dinner to-day, kind of."

"Fried apples and pork was good enough for my father," replied his
wife, "and I guess they'll do for you, Ephraim Weight. Doctor Strong
says you eat too much every day of your life, and that's why you run
to flesh so. Not that I think much of what he says. I asked him how
he accounted for me being so fleshy, and not the value of a great
spoonful passing my lips some days; he made answer he couldn't say.
I think less of that young man's knowledge every time I see him.
'Pears to me if I was the Blyth girls, I should be real unwilling to
have my aunt pass away with no better care than she's likely to get
from him. Billy, where's your push-piece? I don't want to see you
push with your fingers again. It's real vulgar."

"I've eat it!" said Billy. "Mother, there's the young lady from
Miss Blythses going in to Mis' Tree's."

"I want to know--so she is! She's got a bag with her. She's going to
stay. Well, I expect that settles it. I should think Phoebe and
Vesta would feel kind o' bad, being passed over in that way, but
it's pleasant to have young folks about a dying bed--Annie Lizzie,
I'll slap you if you don't stop kicking under the table--and
Nathaniel was always his aunt's favourite. Most likely she's left her
property to him, or to this girl. I expect it'll be a handsome
provision. Mis' Tree has lived handsome and close all her days. As
you say, deacon, I hope she's prepared, but I never see any signs of
active piety in her myself."

There was a pause, while all the family--except Annie Lizzie, who
profited by the interlude to take two doughnuts beyond her usual
allowance--gazed eagerly at the house opposite.

"She's questioning Direxia. She's shaking her head. Mebbe it's all
over by now; I expect it is. I declare, there's a kind of solemn
look comes over a house--you can't name it, but it's there. Deacon,
I think you'd ought to step over. Elder Haskell is away, you know,
and you senior deacon; I do certainly think you'd ought to step over
and offer prayer, or do whatever's needful. They'll want you to
break it to the girls, like as not; it's terrible to have no man in
a family. All them lone women, and everything to see to; I declare,
my heart warms to 'em, if Phoebe _is_ cranky. Ain't you going, Deacon?"

The deacon hesitated. "I--ain't sure that I'd better, Viny!" he said.
"I feel no assurance that Mis' Tree has passed away, and she is not
one that welcomes inquiry as a rule. I've no objection to asking at
the door--"

"Now, Deacon, if that isn't you all over! you are always so afraid
of putting yourself forward. Where would you have been this day, I
should like to know, if it hadn't been for me shoving behind? I tell
you, when folks comes to their last end they suffer a great change.
If you let that woman die--though it's my firm belief she's dead
a'ready--without at least trying to bring her state before her,
you'll have to answer for it; I won't be responsible. Here's your hat;
now you go right over. There's no knowing--"

"There's Doctor Strong going in now!" pleaded the deacon. "Most
likely he will see to--"

"Ephraim Weight! look me in the eye! We've lived opposite neighbours
to Mis' Tree twenty years, and do you think I'm going to have it
said that when her time came to die we stood back and let strangers,
and next door to heathen, do for her? If you don't go over. I shall.
Mebbe I'd better go, anyway. Wait till I get my bunnit--"

It ended with the deacon's going alone. Slowly and unwillingly he
plodded across the street, and shuffled up the walk; timidly and
half-heartedly he lifted the shining knocker and let it fall.
Direxia Hawkes opened the door, and he passed in.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Well?" said Mrs. Weight.

The deacon had not made a long stay at the opposite house. Returning
faster than he came, his large white cheeks were slightly flushed;
his pale blue eyes wore a startled look. He suffered his wife to
take his hat and stick from him, and opened his mouth once or twice,
but said nothing.

"Well?" said Mrs. Weight again. "Is she dead, Deacon? Ephraim, what
has happened to you? have you lost the use of your speech? Oh! what
will become of me, with these four innocent--"

"Woman, be still!" said Ephraim Weight; and his wife was still,
gaping in utter bewilderment at this turning of her mammoth but
patient worm.

"Mrs. Tree is not dead!" resumed the deacon. "I don't see as she's
any more likely to die than I am. I don't see as there's any living
thing the matter with her--except the devil!"

At this second outburst Mrs. Weight collapsed, and sat down, her
hands on her knees, staring at her husband. The children whimpered
and crept behind her ample back. "Pa" was transformed.

"I went to that house," Deacon Weight went on, "against my judgment,
Viny; you know I did. I felt no call to go, quite the reverse, but
you were so--

"I found Mis' Tree sitting up straight in her chair in the parlour.
She had her nightcap on, and her feet in a footmuff, but that was
all the sign of sickness I could see. She looked up at me as wicked
as ever I saw her. 'Here's the deacon,' she says! 'he's heard I'm
sick--Viny saw you come, doctor,--and he has come to pray over me.
I'm past praying for, Deacon. Have some orange cordial!'

"There was glasses on the tray, and a decanter of that cordial
Direxia makes; it's too strong for a temperance household. Doctor
Strong and that young Blyth girl were sitting on two stools, and
they was all three playing cards! I suppose I looked none too well
pleased, for Mis' Tree said, 'I can't have you turning my cordial
sour, Ephraim Weight. Remember when you stole oranges out of the
schooner, and Cap'n Tree horsed you up and spanked you? here's your
health, Ephraim!'

"She--she looked at me for a minute, sharp and quick--I was seeking
for some word that might bring her to a sense of her state, and what
was fitting at her age--and then she begun to laugh. 'You thought I
was dead!' says she. 'You thought I was dead, I see it in your face;
and Viny sent you to view the remains. You go home, and tell her
I'll bury ye both, and do it handsome. Go 'long with ye! scat!'

"That was the expression she used, to a senior deacon of the
congregation she sits in. I believe Satan has a strong hold on that
old woman. I--I think I will go to my room, wife."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Do you think there is really anything the matter with Aunt Tree?"
asked Vesta. She had followed the young doctor out into the prim
little garden, and was picking some late roses as she spoke.

"I can't make out anything," said Geoffrey. "She says she has a pain,
and tells me to find out where it is, if I know anything; and then
she laughs in my face, and refuses to answer questions. I think
Mr. Tree must have had a lively time of it; she's perfectly
delightful, though. Her pulse and temperature are all right; she
looks well; of course at that age the slightest breath blows out the
flame, but I cannot make out that anything is actually wrong. I
suspect--"

"What?" said Vesta.

"I suspect she simply wanted you to come and stay with her, and made
this an excuse."

"But I would have come; there was no need of any excuse. I would
have come in a minute if she had asked me; I am so very much stronger,
and I love to stay here."

"You won't stay long, though, will you? it can't be necessary, not
in the least necessary. She is really perfectly well, and we--your
aunts, that is--the house will be too forlorn without you."

Vesta laughed; she had a delightful laugh.

"You have charming manners!" she said. "I can't help knowing that
you will really be glad to be rid of me, all but Aunt Vesta; dear
Aunt Vesta."

"You don't know!" said Geoffrey. "It won't be the same place without
you."

"Yes, I do know; Aunt Phoebe told me. You said the three of you made
the perfect triangle, and you wouldn't let in the Czar of Russia or
the Pope of Rome to spoil it."

"Oh! but that was before--that was when things were entirely
different!" said Geoffrey. "I--to tell the truth, I think I was about
twelve years old when I first came to the house. I am growing up a
little, Miss Blyth, I truly am. And you are not in the least like
the Czar or the Pope either, and--I wish you would come back. Mayn't
I have a rose, please?"

"Oh! all you want, I am sure," said Vesta, heartily. "But they are
not really so pretty as those at home."

"I thought perhaps you would give me one of those in your hand,"
said Geoffrey, half-timidly. "Thank you! I don't suppose--"

He was about to suggest her pinning it on his coat, but caught sight
of Mrs. Weight at the opposite window, and refrained.

"Do you know any Spanish?" he asked, abruptly.

"Spanish? no!" said Vesta, looking at him wide-eyed.

"Not even names of flowers?"

"No! how should I? Why do you ask?"

"Oh--nothing! I was thinking of learning it one of these days, but I
don't believe I shall. Come and walk a little way, won't you? You
look tired. I can't--you must not stay here if you are going to get
tired, you know. Old people are very exacting sometimes."

"Oh, I shall not get tired. You can't think how much better I am. No,
I must go back now, Doctor Strong. Aunt Tree might want something."

"Physician's orders!" said Geoffrey, peremptorily. "Dose of one-half
mile, to be taken immediately. Won't you please come, Miss Blyth? I--I
want to tell you about a very interesting case."

Mrs. Weight peered over the window-blind. She was carrying a cup of
tea to the deacon, who was feeling poorly, but had paused at sight
of the young couple. "If that girl thinks of making up to that young
man," she said, "she's got hold of the wrong cob, I can tell her.
Mira Pettis made him a napkin-holder, worked 'Bonappety' on it in
cross-stitch on blue satin, and he give it to the girls' cat for a
collar. I see the cat with it on. I don't want to see no clearer
than that how he treats young ladies. I wish't Doctor Stedman was
home."




CHAPTER XI.


BROKEN BONES

Another bicycle accident! This time it was a head-on collision, two
boys riding at each other round a corner, as if for a wager. The
young doctor had patched them both up, there being no broken bones,
only a dislocated shoulder and many bruises, and was now riding home,
reflecting upon the carelessness of the human race in general, and
of boys in particular. Here was one of the great benefactions of
modern civilisation, a health-and-pleasure-giving apparatus within
the reach of all, and often turned into an engine of destruction by
senseless stupidity. Mrs. Tree would burn all bicycles if she could
have her way; not that Mrs. Tree was stupid, far from it! Miss
Phoebe disapproved of them, Miss Vesta feared them, and evidently
expected his to blow up from day to day. What would they all say if
they knew that he had been trying to persuade Vesta to ride with him?
He called her Vesta in his thoughts, merely to distinguish her from
her aunt. He was quite sure it would be the best possible exercise
for her, now that she was so much stronger. So far, she had met all
his representations with her gentle--no! not gentle; Geoffrey would
be switched if she was gentle; her quiet negative. Her aunts would
not like it, and there was an end. Well, there wasn't an end! A
reasonable person ought to listen to reason, and be convinced by it.
Vesta did not appear to be reasonable yet, but she was intelligent,
and the rest would come as she grew stronger. And--he had no right
to say she was not gentle; she could be the gentlest creature that
ever lived, when it was a question of a child, or a bird, or--
anything that was hurt, in short. When that little beggar fell down
the other day and barked his idiotic little shins, the way she took
him up, and kissed him, and got him to laughing, while he, Geoffrey,
plastered him up; and it hurt too, getting the gravel out. When that
violoncello note gets into her voice--well, you know! Yes, she must
certainly ride the bicycle! What could be more restoring, more
delightful, than to ride along a country road like this, in the soft
afternoon, when the heat of the day was over? The honey-clover was
in blossom; there were clusters of it everywhere, making the whole
air sweet. Of course he would watch her, keep note of her colour and
breathing, see that she did not overdo it. Of course it was his
business to see to all that. What was that the old professor used to
say?

"There are two hands upon the pulse of life; the detective's, to
surprise and confound, the physician's, to help and to heal."

It was that, after all, that feeling, that decided one to be a
physician. If he could do anything to help this beautiful and--yes,
noble creature, he was bound to do it, wasn't he, whether her aunts
liked it or not? even, perhaps, whether she herself liked it or not.
Well, but she would like it, she couldn't help liking it, once she
tried it. She was built for a rider. He might borrow Miss Flabb's
wheel for her. It was absurd for Miss Flabb to attempt to ride; she
would never do enough to take down her flesh, and meantime, being
near-sighted, she was at the mercy of every stray dog and hen, and
likely to be run down by the first scorcher on the highroad. Now
with him, even at the beginning, Vesta would have nothing to fear.
He would--

At this moment came an interruption. The interruption had four legs,
and barked. It came from a neighbouring farmhouse, and flew straight
at the wheel, which was also flying, for the young doctor was apt to
ride fast when he was thinking. There was a whirl of arms, legs,
wheels, and tails, a heavy fall,--and the dog ran off on three legs,
ki-hying to the skies, and the young doctor lay still in the road.

Half an hour later, Mr. Ithuriel Butters stopped at the door of the
Temple of Vesta. He was driving a pair of comfortable old white
horses, who went to sleep as soon as he said "Whoa!" He looked up at
the house, and then behind him in the wagon. Seeing nobody at the
windows, he looked up and down the street, and was aware of a young
woman approaching. He hailed her.

"Say, do you know the folks in that house?"

"Yes," said Vesta; "I am staying there."

"Be!" said Mr. Butters. "Wal, Doctor Strong boards there too, don't
he?"

"Yes; I don't think he is in now, though."

"I know he ain't!" said Ithuriel Butters.

Vesta looked with interest at the stalwart old figure, and strong
keen face. Most of the wrinkles in the face had come from smiling,
but it was grave enough now.

"Will you come in and wait," she asked, "or leave a message?"

"Wal, I guess I won't do neither--this time!" said Mr. Butters,
slowly.

Vesta looked at him in some perplexity; he returned a glance of
grave meaning.

"You kin to him?" asked the old man. "Sister, or cousin, mebbe?"

"No! what is it? something has happened to Doctor Strong!" Vesta's
hand tightened on the rail of the steps.

"Keepin' company with him, p'raps?"

"No, oh, no! will you tell me at once, please, and plainly, what has
happened?"

Vesta spoke quietly; in her normal condition she was always quieter
when moved; but the colour seemed to fall from her cheeks as her
eyes followed those of the old man to something that lay long and
still in the cart behind him.

"Fact is," said Mr. Butters, "I've got him here. 'Pears to be"--the
strong old voice faltered for an instant--"'pears to be bust up some
consid'able. I found him in the ro'd a piece back, with his
velocipede tied up all over him. He ain't dead, nor he ain't asleep,
but I can't git nothin' out of him, so I jest brung him along. I'll
h'ist him out, if you say so."

"Can you?" said Vesta. "I will help you. I am strong enough. Will
your horses stand?"

"They can't fall down, 'count of the shafts," said Mr. Butters,
clambering slowly down from his seat, "and they won't do nothin' else.
We'll git him out now, jest as easy. I think a sight of that young
feller; made me feel bad, I tell ye, to see him there all stove up,
and think mebbe--"

"Don't, please!" said Vesta. "I am--not very strong--"

"Thought you said you was!" said Ithuriel Butters. "You stand one
side, then, if it's the same to you. I can carry him as easy as I
would a baby, and I wouldn't hurt him no more'n I would one."

       *       *       *       *       *

"There are two hands upon the pulse of life!" said the young doctor.

No one replied to this remark, nor did he appear to expect a reply.
The room was darkened, and he was lying on his bed; at least some
one was, he supposed it was himself. There was a smell of drugs. Some
one had been hurt.

"There are two hands upon the pulse of life," he repeated; "the
detective's, to surprise--and confound; the phys--phys--what?"

"Physician's," said some one.

"That's it! the physician's, to help and to heal. This appears to be--
combination--both--"

The hand was removed from his wrist. He frowned heavily, and asked
if he were a Mohammedan. Receiving no answer, repeated the question
with some irritation.

"I don't think so," said the same quiet voice. "Then why--turban?"
he frowned again, and brought the folds of linen lower over his nose.
They were quietly readjusted. The light, firm hand was laid on his
forehead for a moment, then once more on his wrist. Then something
was put to his lips; he was told to drink, and did so. Than he said,
"My name is Geoffrey Strong. There is nothing the matter with me."

"Yes, I know."

"But--if you take away your hand--I can't hold on, you know."

The hand was laid firmly on his. He sighed comfortably, murmuring
something about not knowing that violoncellos had hands; dozed a few
minutes; dragged himself up from unimaginable depths to ask,
"You are sure you understand that about the pulse?"

Being answered, "Yes, I quite understand," said, "Then you'll see to
it!" and slept like a baby.

When he woke next morning, it was with an alert and inquisitive eye.
The eye glanced here and there, taking in details.

"What the--_what_ is all this?"

There was a soft flurry, and Miss Vesta was beside him. "Oh! my dear--
my dear young friend! thank God, you are yourself again!"

Geoffrey's eyes softened into tenderness as he looked at her.
"Dear Miss Vesta! what is the matter? I seem to have--" He tried to
move his right arm, but stopped with a grimace. "I seem to have
smashed myself. Would it bother you to tell me about it? Stop, though!
I remember! a dog ran out, and got tangled up in the spokes. Oh, yes,
I remember. Am I much damaged? arm broken--who set it? that's a nice
bandage, anyhow. But why the malignant and the turbaned Turk effect?
is my head broken, too?"

"Oh, no, dear Doctor Strong, nothing malignant; nothing at all of
that nature, I assure you. Oh, I hope, I hope the arm is properly
cared for! but it was so unfortunate his being laid up with pleurisy
just at this time, wasn't it? and a severe contusion on your head,
you see, so that for some hours we were sadly--but now you are
entirely yourself, and we are so humbly and devoutly thankful, dear
Doctor Strong!"

"I think you might say 'Geoffrey,' when I am all broke up!" said the
boy.

"Geoffrey, dear Geoffrey!" murmured Miss Vesta, patting his sound
arm softly.

"I think you might sit down by me and tell me all about it. Who is
laid up with pleurisy? how much am I broken? who brought me home?
who set my arm? I want to know all about it, please!"

The young doctor spoke with cheerful imperiousness. Miss Vesta
glanced timorously toward the door, then sat down by the bedside.
"Hush!" she said, softly. "You must not excite yourself, my dear
young friend, you must not, indeed. I will tell you all about it, if
you think--if you are quite sure you ought to be told. You are a
physician, of course, but she was very anxious that you should not
be excited."

"Who was anxious? I shall be very much excited if you keep things
from me, Miss Vesta. I feel my temperature going up this moment."

"Dear! dear!" cried poor Miss Vesta. "Try--to--to restrain it,
Geoffrey, I implore you. I will--I will tell you at once. As you
surmise, my dear, a dog--we suppose it to have been a dog, though I
am not aware that anyone saw the accident. An old man whom you once
attended--Mr. Butters; you spoke of him, I remember--found you lying
in the road, my child, quite unconscious. He is an unpolished person,
but possessed of warm affections. I--I can never forget his tender
solicitude about you. He brought you home in his wagon, and carried
you into the house. He volunteered to go to Greening for Doctor Namby--"

"Namby never put on this bandage!" interrupted Geoffrey.

"No, Geoffrey, no! we do not think highly of Doctor Namby, but there
was no one else, for you seem to feel so strongly about Doctor Pottle--"

"Pottle is a boiled cabbage-head!" said Geoffrey. "He couldn't set a
hen's leg without tying it in bow-knots, let alone a man's arm. Who
did set it, Miss Vesta? I'm sure I must be up to 105 by this time. I
can't answer for the consequences, you know, if--"

"Oh! hush! hush!" cried Miss Vesta. "He had the pleurisy, as I said;
very badly indeed, poor man, so that he was quite, quite invalided--"

"Pottle had? serve him--"

"No, no, Geoffrey; Doctor Namby had. And so--she was quite positive
she understood the case, and--Mr. Butters upheld her--oh, I trust, I
trust I did not do wrong in allowing her to take so grave a
responsibility--Sister Phoebe in bed with her erysipelas--Geoffrey--
you will not be angry, my dear young friend? Little Vesta set the arm!"

The word finally spoken, Miss Vesta sat panting quickly and softly,
like a frightened bird, her eyes fixed anxiously on the young doctor.

The young doctor whistled; then considered the arm again with keen
scrutiny.

"The de--that is--she did, did she?" he said, half to himself. He
felt it all over with his sound hand, and inspected it again.
"Well, it's a mighty good job," he said, "whoever did it."

Miss Vesta's sigh of relief was almost a gasp. Geoffrey looked up
quickly, and saw her gentle eyes brimming with tears.

"You dear angel!" he cried, taking her hand. "I have made you anxious.
I am a brute--a cuttlefish--hang me, somebody, do!"

"Oh! hush, hush! my boy!" cried the little lady, wiping away her
tears. "It was only--the relief, Geoffrey. To feel that you are not
angry at her--Sister Phoebe would call it presumption, but Vesta did
not _mean_ to be presumptuous, Geoffrey--and that you think it is
not so ill done as I feared. I--I am so happy, that is all, my dear!"

She wept silently, and Geoffrey lay and called himself names.
Presently--"Where is she?" he asked.

"Sister Phoebe? she is still in bed, and suffering a good deal. I am
continuing the remedies you gave her. I--I have thought it best to
let her suppose that Doctor Namby had attended you, Geoffrey. She is
very nervous, and I feared to excite her."

Geoffrey commended her wisdom, but made it clear that he was not
thinking of Miss Phoebe. Couldn't he see Miss Little Vesta? he asked.
He wanted to--to thank her for what she had done, and ask just how
she had done it. There were all sorts of details--in short, it was
important that he should see her at once. Asleep? Why--it seemed
unreasonable that she should be asleep at this hour of the morning.
Was she not well?

"She--she watched by you most of the night!" Miss Vesta confessed.
"Your head--she was afraid of congestion, and wanted the cloths
changed frequently. She would not let me sit up, Geoffrey, though I
begged her to let me do so. She will come as soon as she wakes, I am
sure."

"I told you I was a cuttlefish!" said Geoffrey. "Now you see! I--I
believe I am getting sleepy again, Miss Vesta. What is that pretty
thing you have around your neck? Did she sit in that chair? What a
fool a man is when he is asleep!"

Seeing his eyelids droop, Miss Vesta moved softly away; was called
back at the door, and found him looking injured. "You haven't tucked
me up!" he said.

Miss Vesta tucked him up with delicate precision, and drew the snowy
counterpane into absolute smoothness. "There!" she said, her gentle
eyes beaming with maternal pleasure. "Is there anything else, dear
doctor--I mean dear Geoffrey?"

"No, nothing--unless--I don't suppose angels ever kiss people, do
they?"

Very pink indeed, even to her pretty little ears, Miss Vesta stooped
and deposited a very small and very timid kiss on his forehead; then
slipped away like a little shocked ghost, wondering what Sister
Phoebe would say.




CHAPTER XII.


CONVALESCENCE

"Where did you get your splints?" asked Geoffrey. "Was this thing
all arranged beforehand? you confess to the bandages in your trunk."

Vesta laughed. "Your poor cigars! I tumbled them out of their box
with very little ceremony. See them, scattered all over the table! I
must put them tidy."

She moved to the table, and began piling the cigars in a hollow
square. "A cigar-box makes excellent splints," she said; "did you
ever try it?"

But Geoffrey was thinking what a singular amount of light a white
dress seemed to bring into a room, and did not immediately reply.

When he did speak, he said, "You watched me--I kept you up all night.
I ought to be shot."

"That would be twice as troublesome," said Vesta, gravely; "I can
set an arm, but I don't know anything about wounds, except
theoretically. Perhaps you would'nt like theoretic treatment."

"Perhaps not. Was there--it seems a perfectly absurd question to ask,
but--well, was any one playing the 'cello here last night? why do
you laugh?"

"Only because you seem to have the 'cello so on your mind. You said
such funny things last night, while you were light-headed, you know."

Geoffrey became conscious of the roots of his hair. "What did I say?"
he asked.

"You seemed to think that some one was playing the 'cello; or rather,
you fancied there was a 'cello in the room, and it seemed to be
endowed with life. You said, 'I didn't know that 'cellos had hands!'
and then you asked if it spoke Spanish. I couldn't help laughing a
little at that, and you were quite short with me, and told me I that
didn't know phlox from flaxseed. It was very curious!"

"Must have been!" said Geoffrey, dryly. "I'm only thankful--was that
the worst thing I said?"

"Wasn't that bad enough? yes, that was the very worst. I am going
out now, Doctor Strong. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Going out!" repeated Geoffrey, in dismay.

"Yes. I have some errands to do. What is it?" for the cloud on his
brow was unmistakable.

"Oh--nothing! I thought you were going to see to this crack in my
skull, but it's no matter."

"It is hardly two hours since I dressed it," said Vesta. "I thought
you said it felt very comfortable."

"Well--it did; but it hurts now, considerably. No matter, though, if
you are busy I dare say I could get Pottle to come in sometime in
the course of the day."

He had the grace to be ashamed of himself, when Vesta brought basin
and sponge, and began quietly and patiently to dress the injured
temple.

"I know I am fractious," he said, plaintively. "I can't seem to help
it."

He looked up, and saw her clear eyes intent and full of light.

"It is healing beautifully!" she said. "I wish you could see it;
it's a lovely colour now."

"It's a shame to give you all this trouble," said Geoffrey, trying
to feel real contrition.

"Oh, but I like it!" he was cheerfully assured. "It's delightful to
see a cut like this."

"Thank you!" said Geoffrey. "I used to feel that way myself."

"And the callous is going to form quickly in the arm, I am sure of it!"
said Vesta, with shining eyes. "I am so pleased with you, Doctor
Strong! And now--there! is that all right? Take the glass and see if
you like the looks of it. I think the turban effect is rather
becoming. Now--is there any one you would like me to go and see
while I am out? Of course--I have no diploma, nothing of the sort,
but I could carry out your orders faithfully, and report to you."

"Oh, you are very good!" said Geoffrey. "But--you would be gone all
the--I mean--your aunts might need you, don't you think?"

"No, indeed! Aunt Phoebe is better--I gave her the drops, and Aunt
Vesta is bathing her now with the lotion--I can take the afternoon
perfectly well. Your case-book? this one? no, truly, Doctor Strong,
it will be a pleasure, a real pleasure."

"You're awfully good!" said Geoffrey, ruefully.

"It is the _most_ unfortunate combination I ever heard of!" said
Miss Phoebe Blyth.

Miss Phoebe was in bed, too, and suffering very considerable
discomfort. Erysipelas is not a thing to speak lightly of; and if it
got into Miss Phoebe's temper as well as into her eyes, this was not
to be wondered at.

Miss Vesta murmured some soothing words, and bathed the angry red
places gently; but Miss Phoebe was not to be soothed.

"It is all very well for you, Vesta," said the poor lady, "you have
never had any responsibility; of course it is not to be supposed
that you should have, with what you have gone through. But with all
I have on _my_ shoulders, to be laid up in this way is--really, I
must say!"

This last remark was the sternest censure that Miss Phoebe was ever
known to bestow upon the Orderings of Providence.

"Has Doctor Pottle attended to the doctor's arm this morning?"

This was the question Miss Vesta had been dreading. She pretended
not to hear it; but it was repeated with incisive severity.

"You are getting a little hard of hearing, Vesta. I asked you, has
Doctor Strong's arm been attended to this morning?"

"Yes! oh, yes, Sister Phoebe, it has. And--it is healing finely, and
so is his head. She says--I mean--"

"You mean _he_ says!" said Miss Phoebe, with a superior air.
"This excitement is too much for you, Vesta. We shall have you
breaking down next. I do not know that I care to hear precisely what
Doctor Pottle says. In such an emergency as this we were forced to
call him in, but I have a poor opinion of his skill, and none of his
intelligence. If our dear Doctor Strong is doing well, that is all I
need to know."

"Yes, Sister Phoebe," acquiesced Miss Vesta, with silent thanksgiving.

"When you next visit Doctor Strong's room," Miss Phoebe continued,--
"I regret that you should be obliged to do so, my dear Vesta, but
the disparity in your years is so great as to obviate any glaring
impropriety, and besides, there seems to be no help for it,--when
you next visit him, I beg you to give him my kindest--yes! I am
convinced that there can be no--you may say my affectionate regards,
Vesta. Tell him that I find myself distinctly better to-day, thanks,
no doubt, to the remedies he has prescribed; and that I trust in a
short time to be able to give my personal supervision to his recovery.
You may point out to him that a period of seclusion and meditation,
even when not unmixed with suffering, may often be productive of
beneficial results, moral as well as physical; and in a mind like his--
hark! what is that sound, Vesta?"

Miss Vesta listened. "I think--it is Doctor Strong," she said.
"I think he is singing, Sister Phoebe. I cannot distinguish the words;
very likely some hymn his mother taught him. Dear lad!"

"He has a beautiful spirit!" said Miss Phoebe; "there are less
signs of active piety than I could wish, but he has a beautiful
spirit. Yes, you are right, it is a hymn, Vesta."

Even if Miss Vesta had distinguished the words, it would have made
little difference, since she did not understand Italian. For this is
what the young doctor was singing:

  "Voi che sapete che cosa e l'amor,
  Donne, vedete s'io l'ho nel cuor!"

The sisters listened; Miss Phoebe erect among her pillows, her
nightcap tied in a rigid little bow under her chin; Miss Vesta
sitting beside her, wistful and anxious, full of tender solicitude
for sister, friend, niece,--in fact, for all her little world. But
neither of them could tell the young doctor what he wanted to know.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was near sunset when Vesta came again into the young doctor's room.
He was sitting in the big armchair by the window. He was cross, and
thought medicine a profession for dogs.

"I trust you have enjoyed your afternoon!" he said, morosely. Then
he looked up at the radiant face and happy eyes, and told himself
that he was a squid; cuttlefish was too good a name for him.

Vesta smiled and nodded, a little out of breath.

"I ran up-stairs!" she said. "I didn't think, and I just ran. I am
well, Doctor Strong, do you realise it? Oh, it is so wonderful! It
is worth it all, every bit, to feel the spring coming back. You told
me it would, you know; I didn't believe you, and I hasten to do
homage to your superior intelligence. Hail, Solomon! Yes, I have had
a most delightful afternoon, and now you shall hear all about it."

She sat down, and took out the note-book. Geoffrey had been
wondering all the afternoon what colour her eyes were, now that they
had ceased to be dark agates. "I know now!" he said. "They are like
Mary Donnelly's."

  "'Her eyes like mountain water
    Where it's running o'er a rock.'"


"Whose eyes?" asked Vesta. "Not Luella Slocum's? I was just going to
tell you about her."

"No, not hers. How is she? You must have had a sweet time there."

Vesta gave her head a backward shake--it was a pretty way she had--
and laughed. "I am sure I did her good," she said. "She was so angry
at my coming, so sure I didn't know anything, and so consumed with
desire to know what and where and how long I had studied, and what
my father was thinking of to allow me, and what my mother would have
said if she had lived to see the day, and what my aunts would say as
it was, that she actually forgot her _tic_, poor soul, and talked a
great deal, and freed her mind. It's a great thing to free the mind.
But she said I need not call again; and--I'm afraid I have got you
into disgrace, too, for when I said that you would come as soon as
you were able, she sniffed, and said she would let you know if she
wanted you. I am sorry!"

"Are you?" said Geoffrey. "I am not. She will send for Pottle
to-morrow, and he will suit her exactly. Where else did you go?"

Several cases were given in detail, and for a time the talk was
sternly professional. Geoffrey found his questions answered clearly
and directly, with no superfluous words; moreover, there seemed to
be judgment and intelligence. Well, he always said that one woman in
ten thousand might--

Coming to the last case in the book, Vesta's face lightened into
laughter.

"Oh, those Binney children!" she said. "They were so funny and dear!
I had a delightful time there. They were all much better,--Paul's
fever entirely gone, and Ellie's throat hardly inflamed at all. They
wanted to get up, but I didn't think they would better before
to-morrow, so we played menagerie, and had a great time."

"Played menagerie?"

"Yes. I made a hollow square with the cribs and some chairs, and
they were the lions, and I was the tamer. We played for an hour,--
Mrs. Binney was tired, and I made her go and lie down,--and then I
sang them to sleep, dear little lambs, and came away and left them."

"I see!" said Geoffrey. "That is what made you so late. Do you think
it's exactly professional to play menagerie for an hour and a half
with your patients?"

Vesta laughed; the happy sound of her laughter fretted his nerves.

"I suppose that is the way you will practise, when you have taken
your degree!" he said, disagreeably.

The girl flushed, and the happy light left her eyes. "Don't talk of
that!" she said. "I told you I had given it up once and for all."

"But you are well now; and--I am bound to say--you seem in many ways
qualified for a physician. You might try again when you are entirely
strong."

"And break down again? thank you. No; I have proved to myself that I
cannot do it, and there is an end."

"Then--it's no business of mine, of course--what will you do?" asked
Geoffrey. His ill-temper was dying out. The sound of her voice, so
full, so even, so cordial, filled him like wine. He wanted her to go
on talking; it did not matter much about what.

"What will you do?" he repeated, as the girl remained silent.

"Oh, I don't know! I suppose I shall just be a plain woman the rest
of my life."

"I don't think plain is exactly the word!" said Geoffrey.

"You didn't think 'pretty' was!" said Vesta; and, with a flash of
laughter, she was gone.

Geoffrey had not wanted her to go. He had been alone all the
afternoon. (Ah, dear Miss Vesta! was it solitude, the patient hour
you spent by his side, reading to him, chatting, trying your best to
cheer the depression that you partly saw, partly divined? yes; for
when an experiment in soul-chemistry is going on, it is one element,
and one only, that can produce the needed result!) He had been alone,
I say, all the afternoon, and his head ached, and there were shooting
pains in his arm, and--he used to think it would be so interesting
to break a bone, that one would learn so much better in that kind of
way. Well, he was learning, learning no end; only you wanted some
one to talk it over with. There was no fun in knowing things if
there was no one to tell about them. And--anyhow, this bandage was
getting quite dry, or it would be soon. There was the bowl of water
on the stand beside him, but he could not change bandages with one
hand. He heard Vesta stirring about in her room, the room next his.
She was singing softly to herself; it didn't trouble her much that
he was all alone, and suffering a good deal. She had a cold nature.
Absurd for a person to be singing to chairs and tables, when other
people--

He coughed; coughed again; sighed long and audibly. The soft singing
stopped; was she--

No! it went on again. He knew the tune, but he could not hear the
words. There was nothing so exasperating as not to be able to place
a song.--

Crash! something shivered on the floor. Vesta came running, the song
still on her lips. Her patient was flushed, and looked studiously
out of the window.

"What is it? Oh, the bowl! I am so sorry! How did it happen?"

"It--fell down!" said Geoffrey.

Vesta was on her knees, picking up the pieces, sopping the spilt
water with a towel. He regarded her with remorseful triumph.

"You were singing!" he said, at length.

"Was I? did I disturb you? I won't--"

"No! I don't mean that. I wanted to hear the words. I--I threw the
bowl down on purpose."

Vesta looked up in utter amazement; meeting the young doctor's eyes,
something in them brought the lovely colour flooding over her face
and neck.

"That was childish!" she said, quietly, and went on picking up the
pieces. "It was a valuable bowl."

"I am--feverish!" said Geoffrey. "This bandage is getting dry, and I
am all prickles."

Vesta hesitated a moment; then she laid her hand on his forehead.
"You have _no_ fever!" she said. "You are flushed and restless, but--
Doctor Strong, this is convalescence!"

"Is that what you call it?" said Geoffrey.




CHAPTER XIII.


RECOVERY

"Feelin' real smart, be ye?" asked Mr. Ithuriel Butters. "Wal, I'm
pleased to hear it."

Mr. Butters sat in the young doctor's second armchair, and looked at
him with friendly eyes. His broad back was turned to the window, but
Geoffrey faced it, and the light showed his face pale, indeed, but
full of returning health and life; his arm was still in a sling, but
his movements otherwise were free and unrestrained.

"You're lookin' fust-rate," said Mr. Butters. "Some different from
the last time I see ye."

"I wonder what would have become of me if you had not happened along
just then, Mr. Butters," said Geoffrey. "I think I owe you a great
deal more than you are willing to acknowledge."

"Nothin' at all; nothin' at all!" said the old man, briskly.
"I h'isted ye up out the ro'd, that was all; I sh'd have had to
h'ist jest the same if ye'd be'n a critter or a lawg, takin' up the
hull ro'd the way ye did."

"And how about bringing me home, three miles out of your way, and
carrying me up-stairs, and all that? I suppose you would have done
all that for a critter, eh?"

"Wal--depends upon the value of the critter!" said Mr. Butters, with
a twinkle. "I never kep' none of mine up-stairs, but there's no
knowin' these days of fancy stock. No, young man! if there's anybody
for you to thank, it's that young woman. Now there's a gal--what's
her name? I didn't gather it that day."

"Vesta--Miss Vesta Blyth."

"I want to know! my fust wife's name was Vesty; Vesty Barlow she was;
yes, sir. I do'no' but I liked her best of any of 'em. Not but what
I've had good ones since, but 'twas different then, seems' though.
She was the ch'ice of my youth, ye see. Yes, sir; Vesty is a good
name, and that's a good gal, if I know anything about gals. She's no
kin to you, she said."

"No; none whatever."

"Nor yet you ain't keepin' company with her?"

"No-o!" cried Geoffrey, wincing.

"Ain't you asked her?"

"No! please don't--"

"Why not?" demanded Mr. Butters, with ample severity.

Geoffrey tried to laugh, and failed. "I--I can't talk about these
things, Mr. Butters."

"Don't you want her?" the old man went on, pitilessly. Geoffrey
looked up angrily; looked up, and met a look so kind and true and
simple, that his anger died, still-born.

"Yes!" he said. "God knows I do. But you are wholly mistaken in
thinking--that is--she wouldn't have me."

"I expect she would!" said Ithuriel Butters. "I expect that is jest
what she would have. I see her when you was layin' there, all stove
up; you might have be'n barrel-staves, the way you looked. I see her
face, and I don't need to see no more."

Geoffrey tried to say something about kindness and womanly pity, but
the strong old voice bore him down.

"I know what pity looks like, and I know the other thing. She's no
soft-heart to squinch at the sight of blood, and that sort of foolery.
Tell ye, she was jest as quiet and cool as if 'twas a church sociable,
and she set that bone as easy and chirk as my woman would take a pie
out the oven; but when she had you all piecened up, and stood and
looked at you--wal, there!"

"Don't! I cannot let you!" cried Geoffrey. His voice was full of
distress; but was it the western sun that made his face so bright?

"Wal, there's all kinds of fools," said Mr. Butters. "Got the
teethache?"

"Toothache? no! why?"

"Thought you hollered as if ye had. How would you go to work to cure
the teethache now, s'posin' you had it?"

"I should go to a dentist, and let him cure it for me."

"S'posin' you lived ten mile from a dentist, young feller? you're
too used to settin' in the middle of creation and jerkin' the reins
for the hoss to go. Jonas E. Homer had the teethache once, bad."

He paused.

"Well," said the young doctor, "who was Jonas E. Homer, and how did
he cure his toothache?"

"Jonas Elimelech was his full name," said Mr. Butters, settling
himself comfortably in his chair. "He's neighbour to me, about five
miles out on the Buffy Landin' ro'd. Yes, he had the teethache bad.
Wife wanted him to go and have 'em hauled, but he said he wouldn't
have no feller goin' fishin' in _his_ mouth. No, sir! he went and he
bored a hole in the northeast side of a beech-tree, and put in a
hair of a yaller dawg, and then plugged up the hole with a pine plug.
That was ten years ago, and he's never had the teethache sence. He
told me that himself."

"It's a good story," said the young doctor. "Do you believe it,
Mr. Butters?"

"Wal, I do'no' as I exactly believe it; I was sort of illustratin'
the different kinds of fools there was in the world, that's all."

They were silent. The sun went down, but the light stayed in the
young doctor's face.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was a commotion in the room below. Voices were raised,
feminine voices, shrill with excitement. Then came a bustle on the
stairs, and the sound of feet; then one voice, breathless but decided.

"I tell ye, I know the way. There's no need to show me, and I won't
have it. I haven't been up these stairs for near seventy years,
Phoebe, since the day of your caudle-party, but I know the way as
well as you do, and I'll thank you to stay where you are."

The next moment the door opened, and Mrs. Tree stood on the threshold,
panting and triumphant. Her black eyes twinkled with affection and
malice. "Well, young sir!" she said, as Geoffrey ran to give her his
sound arm, and led her in, and placed her in the seat of honour.
"Fine doings since I last saw you! Humph! you look pretty well,
considering all. Who's this? Ithuriel Butters! How do you do,
Ithuriel? I haven't seen you for forty years, but I should know you
in the Fiji Islands."

"I should know you, too, anywhere, Mis' Tree!" responded Mr. Butters,
heartily. "I'm rejoicin' glad to see ye."

"You wear well, Ithuriel," said Mrs. Tree, kindly. "If you would cut
all that mess of hair and beard, you would be a good-looking man
still; but I didn't come here to talk to you."

She turned to Geoffrey in some excitement. "I'll speak right out,"
she said. "Now's now, and next time's never. I've let the cat out of
the bag. Phoebe has found out about little Vesta's setting your arm
and all, and she's proper mad. Says she'll send the child home
to-morrow for good and all. She's getting on her shoes this minute;
I never could abide those morocco shoes. She'll be up here in no time.
I thought I'd come up first and tell you."

She looked eagerly at the young doctor; but his eyes were fixed on
the window, and he scarcely seemed to hear her. Following his gaze,
she saw a white dress glimmering against the soft dusk of the garden
shrubs.

The young doctor rose abruptly; took one step; paused, and turned to
his guest of ninety years with a little passionate gesture of appeal
"I--cannot leave you," he said; "unless--just one moment--"

"My goodness gracious _me_!" cried Mrs. Tree. "Go this minute, child;
_run_, do you hear? I'll take care of Ithuriel Butters. He was in
my Sunday-school class, though he's only five years younger than me.
Take care and don't fall!"

The last words were uttered in a small shriek, for apparently there
had been but one step to the staircase.

Breathless, the old woman turned and faced the old man. "Have you
got any bumblebees in your pocket this time, Ithuriel?" she asked.

"No,'m," said Ithuriel, soberly. Then they both stared out of the
window with eyes that strove to be as young as they were eager.

[Illustration: "Then he comes, full chisel!" cried Ithuriel Butters.]

"There he comes, full chisel!" cried Ithuriel Butters. "She don't
see him. He's hollerin' to her. She's turned round. I tell ye--he's
grabbed holt of her hand! he's grabbed holt of both her hands! he's--"

Who says that heroism dies with youth? Marcia Tree raised her little
mitted hand, and pulled down the blind.

"It's no business of yours or mine what he's doing, Ithuriel Butters!"
she said, with dignity.

Then she began to tremble. "Seventy years ago," she said, "Ira Tree
proposed to me in that very garden, under that very syringa-tree.
I've been a widow fifty years, Ithuriel, and it seems like yesterday."
And a dry sob clicked in her throat.

"I've buried two good wives," said Mr. Butters, "and my present one
seems to be failin' up some. I hope she'll live now, I reelly do."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Vesta!" Miss Phoebe's voice rang sharp and shrill through the house.
Miss Vesta started. She was at her evening post in the upper hall.
The lamp was lighted, the prayer had been said.

"Dear Lord, I beseech thee, protect all souls at sea this night; for
Jesus Christ's sake. Amen!"

But Miss Vesta was not watching the sea this time. Her eyes, too,
were bent down upon the twilight garden. The lamplight fell softly
there, and threw into relief the two figures pacing up and down,
hand in hand, heart in heart. Miss Vesta could not hear, and would
not if she could have heard, the words her children were saying; her
heart was lifted as high as heaven, in peace and joy and thankfulness,
and the words that sounded in her ear were spoken by a voice long
silent in death.

"Vesta!"

Miss Phoebe's voice rang sharp and shrill through the silent house.
Instinct and habit answered the call at once. "Yes, Sister Phoebe!"

"Stay where you are! I am coming to you. I have discovered--"

The figures below paused full in the lamplight. Two faces shone out,
one all on fire with joy and wonder, the other sweet and white as
the white flower at her breast.

Miss Phoebe's morocco shoes creaked around the corner of the passage.

"Good Lord, forgive me, and save all souls at sea just the same!"
said Miss Vesta; and she blew out the lamp.




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