A STRANGE STORY

by Edward Bulwer Lytton(Lord Lytton)

PREFACE. 

Of the many illustrious thinkers whom the schools of France havecontributed to the intellectual philosophy of our age, Victor Cousin, the most accomplished, assigns to Maine de Biran the rank of the mostoriginal. 

In the successive developments of his own mind, Maine de Biran may, indeed, be said to represent the change that has been silently at workthroughout the general mind of Europe since the close of the lastcentury. He begins his career of philosopher with blind faith inCondillac and Materialism. As an intellect severely conscientious inthe pursuit of truth expands amidst the perplexities it revolves, phenomena which cannot be accounted for by Condillac's sensuous theoriesopen to his eye. To the first rudimentary life of man, the animal life, "characterized by impressions, appetites, movements, organic in theirorigin and ruled by the Law of Necessity, " [1] he is compelled to add, "the second, or human life, from which Free-will and Self-consciousnessemerge. " He thus arrives at the union of mind and matter; but still asomething is wanted, --some key to the marvels which neither of theseconditions of vital being suffices to explain. And at last thegrand self-completing Thinker attains to the Third Life of Man in Man'sSoul. 

 "There are not, " says this philosopher, towards the close of his last and loftiest work, --"there are not only two principles opposed to each other in Man, --there are three. For there are in him three lives and three orders of faculties. Though all should be in accord and in harmony between the sensitive and the active faculties which constitute Man, there would still be a nature superior, a third life which would not be satisfied; which would make felt (ferait sentir) the truth that there is another happiness, another wisdom, another perfection, at once above the greatest human happiness, above the highest wisdom, or intellectual and moral perfection of which the human being is susceptible. " [2]

Now, as Philosophy and Romance both take their origin in the Principle ofWonder, so in the "Strange Story" submitted to the Public it will beseen that Romance, through the freest exercise of its wildest vagaries, conducts its bewildered hero towards the same goal to which Philosophyleads its luminous Student, through far grander portents of Nature, farhigher visions of Supernatural Power, than Fable can yield to Fancy. That goal is defined in these noble words:--

 "The relations (rapports) which exist between the elements and the products of the three lives of Man are the subjects of meditation, the fairest and finest, but also the most difficult. The Stoic Philosophy shows us all which can be most elevated in active life; but it makes abstraction of the animal nature, and absolutely fails to recognize all which belongs to the life of the spirit. Its practical morality is beyond the forces of humanity. Christianity alone embraces the whole Man. It dissimulates none of the sides of his nature, and avails itself of his miseries and his weakness in order to conduct him to his end in showing him all the want that he has of a succor more exalted. " [3]

In the passages thus quoted, I imply one of the objects for whichthis tale has been written; and I cite them, with a wish to acknowledgeone of those priceless obligations which writings the lightest and mostfantastic often incur to reasoners the most serious and profound. 

But I here construct a romance which should have, as a romance, some interest for the general reader. I do not elaborate a treatisesubmitted to the logic of sages. And it is only when "in fairy fictiondrest" that Romance gives admission to "truths severe. "

I venture to assume that none will question my privilege to availmyself of the marvellous agencies which have ever been at the legitimatecommand of the fabulist. 

To the highest form of romantic narrative, the Epic, critics, indeed, have declared that a supernatural machinery is indispensable. That theDrama has availed itself of the same license as the Epic, it would beunnecessary to say to the countrymen of Shakspeare, or to the generationthat is yet studying the enigmas of Goethe's "Faust. " Prose Romance hasimmemorially asserted, no less than the Epic or the Drama, its heritagein the Realm of the Marvellous. The interest which attaches to thesupernatural is sought in the earliest Prose Romance which modern timestake from the ancient, and which, perhaps, had its origin in the lostNovels of Miletus; [4] and the right to invoke such interest has, eversince, been maintained by Romance through all varieties of form andfancy, --from the majestic epopee of "Telemaque" to the graceful fantasiesof "Undine, " or the mighty mockeries of "Gulliver's Travels" down tosuch comparatively commonplace elements of wonder as yet preservefrom oblivion "The Castle of Otranto" and "The Old English Baron. "

Now, to my mind, the true reason why a supernatural agency isindispensable to the conception of the Epic, is that the Epic is thehighest and the completest form in which Art can express either Man orNature, and that without some gleams of the supernatural, Man is notman nor Nature, nature. 

It is said, by a writer to whom an eminent philosophicalcritic justly applies the epithets of "pious and profound:" [5]

 "Is it unreasonable to confess that we believe in God, not by reason of the Nature which conceals Him, but by reason of the Supernatural in Man which alone reveals and proves Him to exist?. .. Man reveals God: for Man, by his intelligence, rises above Nature; and in virtue of this intelligence is conscious of himself as a power not only independent of, but opposed to, Nature, and capable of resisting, conquering, and controlling her. "[6]

If the meaning involved in the argument, of which I have here madebut scanty extracts, be carefully studied, I think that we shall finddeeper reasons than the critics who dictated canons of taste to the lastcentury discovered, --why the supernatural is indispensable to the Epic, and why it is allowable to all works of imagination, in which Art lookson Nature with Man's inner sense of a something beyond and above her. 

But the Writer who, whether in verse or prose, would avail himselfof such sources of pity or terror as flow from the Marvellous, canonly attain his object in proportion as the wonders he narrates are of akind to excite the curiosity of the age he addresses. 

In the brains of our time, the faculty of Causation is very markedlydeveloped. People nowadays do not delight in the Marvellous accordingto the old childlike spirit. They say in one breath, "Very extraordinary!"and in the next breath ask, "How do you account for it?" If the Author ofthis work has presumed to borrow from science some elements of interest forRomance, he ventures to hope that no thoughtful reader--and certainly notrue son of science--will be disposed to reproach him. In fact, suchillustrations from the masters of Thought were essential to thecompletion of the purpose which pervades the work. 

That purpose, I trust, will develop itself in proportion as the storyapproaches the close; and whatever may appear violent or melodramatic inthe catastrophe, will, perhaps, be found, by a reader capableof perceiving the various symbolical meanings conveyed in the story, essential to the end in which those meanings converge, and towardswhich the incidents that give them the character and interest ofof fiction, have been planned and directed from the commencement. 

Of course, according to the most obvious principles of art, thenarrator of a fiction must be as thoroughly in earnest as if he werethe narrator of facts. One could not tell the most extravagantfairy-tale so as to rouse and sustain the attention of the mostinfantine listener, if the tale were told as if the taleteller did notbelieve in it. But when the reader lays down this "Strange Story, "perhaps he will detect, through all the haze of romance, the outlines ofthese images suggested to his reason: Firstly, the image of sensuous, soulless Nature, such as the Materialist had conceived it; secondly, theimage of Intellect, obstinately separating all its inquiries fromthe belief in the spiritual essence and destiny of man, and incurring allkinds of perplexity and resorting to all kinds of visionary speculationbefore it settles at last into the simple faith which unites thephilosopher and the infant; and thirdly, the image of the erring butpure-thoughted visionary, seeking over-much on this earth to separatesoul from mind, till innocence itself is led astray by a phantom, andreason is lost in the space between earth and the stars. Whether inthese pictures there be any truth worth the implying, every readermust judge for himself; and if he doubt or deny that there be anysuch truth, still, in the process of thought which the doubt ordenial enforces, he may chance on a truth which it pleases himselfto discover. 

 "Most of the Fables of AEsop, "--thus says Montaigne in his charming essay "Of Books"[7]--"have several senses and meanings, of which the Mythologists choose some one that tallies with the fable. But for the most part 't is only what presents itself at the first view, and is superficial; there being others more lively, essential, and internal, into which they had not been able to penetrate; and"--adds Montaigne--"the case is the very same with me. "

[1] OEuvres inedites de Maine de Biran, vol. I. See introduction. 

[2] OEuvres inedites de Maine de Biran, vol. Iii. P. 546 (Anthropologie). 

[3] OEuvres inedites de Maine de Biran, vol. Iii. P. 524. 

[4] "The Golden Ass" of Apuleius. 

[5] Sir William Hamilton: Lectures on Metaphysics, p. 40. 

[6] Jacobi: Von der Gottlichen Dingen; Werke, p. 424-426. 

[7] Translation, 1776, Yol. Ii. P. 103. 

CHAPTER I. 

In the year 18-- I settled as a physician at one of the wealthiestof our great English towns, which I will designate by the initial L----. I was yet young, but I had acquired some reputation by a professionalwork, which is, I believe, still amongst the received authorities onthe subject of which it treats. I had studied at Edinburgh and atParis, and had borne away from both those illustrious schools of medicinewhatever guarantees for future distinction the praise of professorsmay concede to the ambition of students. On becoming a member ofthe College of Physicians, I made a tour of the principal cities ofEurope, taking letters of introduction to eminent medical men, andgathering from many theories and modes of treatment hints to enlargethe foundations of unprejudiced and comprehensive' practice. I hadresolved to fix my ultimate residence in London. But before thispreparatory tour was completed, my resolve was changed by one ofthose unexpected events which determine the fate man in vain would workout for himself. In passing through the Tyro, on my way into thenorth of Italy, I found in a small inn, remote from medical attendance, anEnglish traveller seized with acute inflammation of the lungs, andin a state of imminent danger. I devoted myself to him night andday; and, perhaps more through careful nursing than active remedies, Ihad the happiness to effect his complete recovery. The travellerproved to be Julius Faber, a physician of great distinction, contentedto reside, where he was born, in the provincial city of L----, but whosereputation as a profound and original pathologist was widely spread, andwhose writings had formed no unimportant part of my special studies. Itwas during a short holiday excursion, from which he was about to returnwith renovated vigour, that he had been thus stricken down. The patientso accidentally met with became the founder of my professional fortunes. He conceived a warm attachment for me, --perhaps the more affectionatebecause he was a childless bachelor, and the nephew who would succeedto his wealth evinced no desire to succeed to the toils by which thewealth had been acquired. Thus, having an heir for the one, he hadlong looked about for an heir to the other, and now resolved on findingthat heir in me. So when we parted Dr. Faber made me promise tocorrespond with him regularly, and it was not long before he disclosedby letter the plans he had formed in my favour. He said that he wasgrowing old; his practice was beyond his strength; he needed a partner;he was not disposed to put up to sale the health of patients whom he hadlearned to regard as his children: money was no object to him, but it wasan object close at his heart that the humanity he had served, and thereputation he had acquired, should suffer no loss in his choice ofa successor. In fine, he proposed that I should at once come toL---- as his partner, with the view of succeeding to his entirepractice at the end of two years, when it was his intention to retire. 

The opening into fortune thus afforded to me was one that rarelypresents itself to a young man entering upon an overcrowded profession;and to an aspirant less allured by the desire of fortune than the hope ofdistinction, the fame of the physician who thus generously offeredto me the inestimable benefits of his long experience and his cordialintroduction was in itself an assurance that a metropolitan practiceis not essential to a national renown. 

I went, then, to L----, and before the two years of my partnershiphad expired, my success justified my kind friend's selection, and farmore than realized my own expectations. I was fortunate in effectingsome notable cures in the earliest cases submitted to me, and it iseverything in the career of a physician when good luck wins betimes forhim that confidence which patients rarely accord except to lengthenedexperience. To the rapid facility with which my way was made, somecircumstances apart from professional skill probably contributed. I wassaved from the suspicion of a medical adventurer by the accidents ofbirth and fortune. I belonged to an ancient family (a branch of theonce powerful border-clan of the Fenwicks) that had for many generationsheld a fair estate in the neighbourhood of Windermere. As an onlyson I had succeeded to that estate on attaining my majority, and hadsold it to pay off the debts which had been made by my father, who hadthe costly tastes of an antiquary and collector. The residue on thesale insured me a modest independence apart from the profits of aprofession; and as I had not been legally bound to defray my father'sdebts, so I obtained that character for disinterestedness and integritywhich always in England tends to propitiate the public to the successesachieved by industry or talent. Perhaps, too, any professional abilityI might possess was the more readily conceded, because I had cultivatedwith assiduity the sciences and the scholarship which are collaterallyconnected with the study of medicine. Thus, in a word, I established asocial position which came in aid of my professional repute, andsilenced much of that envy which usually embitters and sometimes impedessuccess. 

Dr. Faber retired at the end of the two years agreed upon. He wentabroad; and being, though advanced in years, of a frame still robust, andhabits of mind still inquiring and eager, he commenced a lengthenedcourse of foreign travel, during which our correspondence, at firstfrequent, gradually languished, and finally died away. 

I succeeded at once to the larger part of the practice which the laboursof thirty years had secured to my predecessor. My chief rival was a Dr. Lloyd, a benevolent, fervid man, not without genius, if genius be presentwhere judgment is absent; not without science, if that may be science whichfails in precision, --one of those clever desultory men who, in adoptinga profession, do not give up to it the whole force and heat of theirminds. Men of that kind habitually accept a mechanicalroutine, because in the exercise of their ostensible calling theirimaginative faculties are drawn away to pursuits more alluring. Therefore, in their proper vocation they are seldom bold orinventive, --out of it they are sometimes both to excess. And when they dotake up a novelty in their own profession they cherish it with an obstinatetenacity, and an extravagant passion, unknown to those quiet philosophers who take up novelties every day, examine them with thesobriety of practised eyes, to lay down altogether, modify in part, oraccept in whole, according as inductive experiment supports or destroysconjecture. 

Dr. Lloyd had been esteemed a learned naturalist long before he wasadmitted to be a tolerable physician. Amidst the privations of his youthhe had contrived to form, and with each succeeding year he hadperseveringly increased, a zoological collection of creatures, notalive, but, happily for the be holder, stuffed or embalmed. From what Ihave said, it will be truly inferred that Dr. Lloyd's early career as aphysician had not been brilliant; but of late years he had graduallyrather aged than worked himself into that professional authority andstation which time confers on a thoroughly respectable man whom no oneis disposed to envy, and all are disposed to like. 

Now in L---- there were two distinct social circles, --that of thewealthy merchants and traders, and that of a few privileged familiesinhabiting a part of the town aloof from the marts of commerce, andcalled the Abbey Hill. These superb Areopagites exercised over thewives and daughters of the inferior citizens to whom all of L----, except the Abbey Hill, owed its prosperity, the same kind of mysteriousinfluence which the fine ladies of May Fair and Belgravia are reportedto hold over the female denizens of Bloomsbury and Marylebone. 

Abbey Hill was not opulent; but it was powerful by a concentration ofits resources in all matters of patronage. Abbey Hill had its ownmilliner and its own draper, its own confectioner, butcher, baker, andtea-dealer; and the patronage of Abbey Hill was like the patronage ofroyalty, --less lucrative in itself than as a solemn certificate ofgeneral merit. The shops on which Abbey Hill conferred its custom werecertainly not the cheapest, possibly not the best; but they wereundeniably the most imposing. The proprietors were decorously pompous, the shopmen superciliously polite. They could not be more so if they hadbelonged to the State, and been paid by a public which they benefited anddespised. The ladies of Low Town (as the city subjacent to the Hill hadbeen styled from a date remote in the feudal ages) entered those shopswith a certain awe, and left them with a certain pride. There they hadlearned what the Hill approved; there they had bought what the Hill hadpurchased. It is much in this life to be quite sure that we are in theright, whatever that conviction may cost us. Abbey Hill had been in thehabit of appointing, amongst other objects of patronage, its ownphysician. But that habit had fallen into disuse during the latter yearsof my predecessor's practice. His superiority over all other medical menin the town had become so incontestable, that, though he was emphaticallythe doctor of Low Town, the head of its hospitals and infirmaries, and bybirth related to its principal traders, still as Abbey Hill wasoccasionally subject to the physical infirmities of meaner mortals, so onthose occasions it deemed it best not to push the point of honour to thewanton sacrifice of life. Since Low Town possessed one of the mostfamous physicians in England, Abbey Hill magnanimously resolved not tocrush him by a rival. Abbey Hill let him feel its pulse. 

When my predecessor retired, I had presumptuously expected that theHill would have continued to suspend its normal right to a specialphysician, and shown to me the same generous favour it had shown to him, who had declared me worthy to succeed to his honours. I had the moreexcuse for this presumption because the Hill had already allowed me tovisit a fair proportion of its invalids, had said some very graciousthings to me about the great respectability of the Fenwick family, andsent me some invitations to dinner, and a great many invitations to tea. 

But my self-conceit received a notable check. Abbey Hill declaredthat the time had come to reassert its dormant privilege; it must have adoctor of its own choosing, --a doctor who might, indeed, be permitted tovisit Low Town from motives of humanity or gain, but who mustemphatically assert his special allegiance to Abbey Hill by fixing hishome on that venerable promontory. Miss Brabazon, a spinster ofuncertain age but undoubted pedigree, with small fortune but high nose, which she would pleasantly observe was a proof of her descent fromHumphrey Duke of Gloucester (with whom, indeed, I have no doubt, in spiteof chronology, that she very often dined), was commissioned to inquire ofme diplomatically, and without committing Abbey Hill too much by theoverture, whether I would take a large and antiquated mansion, in whichabbots were said to have lived many centuries ago, and which was stillpopularly styled Abbots' House, situated on the verge of the Hill, as inthat case the "Hill" would think of me. 

"It is a large house for a single man, I allow, " said Miss Brabazon, candidly; and then added, with a sidelong glance of alarming sweetness, "but when Dr. Fenwick has taken his true position (so old a family!)amongst us, he need not long remain single, unless he prefer it. "

I replied, with more asperity than the occasion called for, that I hadno thought of changing my residence at present, and if the Hill wanted me, the Hill must send for me. 

Two days afterwards Dr. Lloyd took Abbots' House, and in less than aweek was proclaimed medical adviser to the Hill. The election had beendecided by the fiat of a great lady, who reigned supreme on the sacredeminence, under the name and title of Mrs. Colonel Poyntz. 

"Dr. Fenwick, " said this lady, "is a clever young man and agentleman, but he gives himself airs, --the Hill does not allow any airsbut its own. Besides, he is a new comer: resistance to new corners, and, indeed, to all things new, except caps and novels, is one of the bonds thatkeep old established societies together. Accordingly, it is by my advicethat Dr. Lloyd has taken Abbots' House; the rent would be too high for hismeans if the Hill did not feel bound in honour to justify the trust hehas placed in its patronage. I told him that all my friends, when theywere in want of a doctor, would send for him; those who are my friendswill do so. What the Hill does, plenty of common people down there willdo also, --so that question is settled!" And it was settled. 

Dr. Lloyd, thus taken by the hand, soon extended the range of hisvisits beyond the Hill, which was not precisely a mountain of gold todoctors, and shared with myself, though in a comparatively small degree, the much more lucrative practice of Low Town. 

I had no cause to grudge his success, nor did I. But to my theoriesof medicine his diagnosis was shallow, and his prescriptions obsolete. When we were summoned to a joint consultation, our views as to the propercourse of treatment seldom agreed. Doubtless he thought I ought to havedeferred to his seniority in years; but I held the doctrine which youthdeems a truth and age a paradox, --namely, that in science the young menare the practical elders, inasmuch as they are schooled in the latestexperiences science has gathered up, while their seniors are cramped bythe dogmas they were schooled to believe when the world was some decadesthe younger. 

Meanwhile my reputation continued rapidly to advance; it became morethan local; my advice was sought even by patients from the metropolis. That ambition, which, conceived in early youth, had decided my career andsweetened all its labours, --the ambition to take a rank and leave a nameas one of the great pathologists to whom humanity accords a grateful, ifcalm, renown, --saw before it a level field and a certain goal. 

I know not whether a success far beyond that usually attained at theage I had reached served to increase, but it seemed to myself tojustify, the main characteristic of my moral organization, --intellectualpride. 

Though mild and gentle to the sufferers under my care, as a necessaryelement of professional duty, I was intolerant of contradiction fromthose who belonged to my calling, or even from those who, in generalopinion, opposed my favourite theories. I had espoused a school ofmedical philosophy severely rigid in its inductive logic. My creed wasthat of stern materialism. I had a contempt for the understanding of menwho accepted with credulity what they could not explain by reason. Myfavourite phrase was "common-sense. " At the same time I had no prejudiceagainst bold discovery, and discovery necessitates conjecture, butI dismissed as idle all conjecture that could not be brought to apractical test. 

As in medicine I had been the pupil of Broussais, so inmetaphysics I was the disciple of Condillac. I believed with thatphilosopher that "all our knowledge we owe to Nature; that in thebeginning we can only instruct ourselves through her lessons; and thatthe whole art of reasoning consists in continuing as she has compelled usto commence. " Keeping natural philosophy apart from the doctrines ofrevelation, I never assailed the last; but I contended that by the firstno accurate reasoner could arrive at the existence of the soul as a thirdprinciple of being equally distinct from mind and body. That by amiracle man might live again, was a question of faith and not ofunderstanding. I left faith to religion, and banished it fromphilosophy. How define with a precision to satisfy the logic ofphilosophy what was to live again? The body? We know that thebody rests in its grave till by the process of decomposition itselemental parts enter into other forms of matter. The mind? But themind was as clearly the result of the bodily organization as the music ofthe harpsichord is the result of the instrumental mechanism. The mindshared the decrepitude of the body in extreme old age, and in thefull vigour of youth a sudden injury to the brain might forever destroythe intellect of a Plato or a Shakspeare. But the third principle, --thesoul, --the something lodged within the body, which yet was to survive it?Where was that soul hidden out of the ken of the anatomist? Whenphilosophers attempted to define it, were they not compelled to confoundits nature and its actions with those of the mind? Could they reduce itto the mere moral sense, varying according to education, circumstances, and physical constitution? But even the moral sense in the most virtuousof men may be swept away by a fever. Such at the time I now speak ofwere the views I held, --views certainly not original nor pleasing; but Icherished them with as fond a tenacity as if they had been consolatorytruths of which I was the first discoverer. I was intolerant to those whomaintained opposite doctrines, --despised them as irrational, or dislikedthem as insincere. Certainly if I had fulfilled the career which myambition predicted, --become the founder of a new school in pathology, andsummed up my theories in academical lectures, --I should have addedanother authority, however feeble, to the sects which circumscribe theinterest of man to the life that has its close in his grave. 

Possibly that which I have called my intellectual pride was morenourished than I should have been willing to grant by the self-reliancewhich an unusual degree of physical power is apt to bestow. Nature hadblessed me with the thews of an athlete. Among the hardy youths of theNorthern Athens I had been preeminently distinguished for feats ofactivity and strength. My mental labours, and the anxiety which isinseparable from the conscientious responsibilities of the medicalprofession, kept my health below the par of keen enjoyment, but had in noway diminished my rare muscular force. I walked through the crowd withthe firm step and lofty crest of the mailed knight of old, who felthimself, in his casement of iron, a match against numbers. Thus thesense of a robust individuality, strong alike in disciplined reason andanimal vigour, habituated to aid others, needing no aid for itself, contributed to render me imperious in will and arrogant in opinion. Norwere such defects injurious to me in my profession; on the contrary, aided as they were by a calm manner, and a presence not without that kindof dignity which is the livery of self-esteem, they served to imposerespect and to inspire trust. 

CHAPTER II. 

I had been about six years at L---- when I became suddenly involvedin a controversy with Dr. Lloyd. Just as this ill-fated man appeared atthe culminating point of his professional fortunes, he had the imprudenceto proclaim himself not only an enthusiastic advocate of mesmerism asa curative process, but an ardent believer of the reality of somnambularclairvoyance as an invaluable gift of certain privileged organizations. To these doctrines I sternly opposed myself, --the more sternly, perhaps, because on these doctrines Dr. Lloyd founded an argument for theexistence of soul, independent of mind, as of matter, and built thereon asuperstructure of physiological fantasies, which, could it besubstantiated, would replace every system of metaphysics on whichrecognized philosophy condescends to dispute. 

About two years before he became a disciple rather of Puysegur thanMesmer (for Mesmer hard little faith in that gift of clairvoyance ofwhich Puysegur was, I believe, at least in modern times, the firstaudacious asserter), Dr. Lloyd had been afflicted with the loss of a wifemany years younger than himself, and to whom he had been tenderlyattached. And this bereavement, in directing the hopes that consoled himto a world beyond the grave, had served perhaps to render him morecredulous of the phenomena in which he greeted additional proofs ofpurely spiritual existence. Certainly, if, in controverting thenotions of another physiologist, I had restricted myself to thatfair antagonism which belongs to scientific disputants anxious only forthe truth, I should need no apology for sincere conviction and honestargument; but when, with condescending good-nature, as if to a manmuch younger than himself, who was ignorant of the phenomena which henevertheless denied, Dr. Lloyd invited me to attend his seances andwitness his cures, my amour propre became aroused and nettled, and itseemed to me necessary to put down what I asserted to be too gross anoutrage on common-sense to justify the ceremony of examination. I wrote, therefore, a small pamphlet on the subject, in which I exhausted all theweapons that irony can lend to contempt. Dr. Lloyd replied; and as he wasno very skilful arguer, his reply injured him perhaps more than myassault. Meanwhile, I had made some inquiries as to the moral characterof his favourite clairvoyants. I imagined that I had learned enough tojustify me in treating them as flagrant cheats, and himself as theiregregious dupe. 

Low Town soon ranged itself, with very few exceptions, on my side. The Hill at first seemed disposed to rally round its insulted physician, and to make the dispute a party question, in which the Hill would havebeen signally worsted, when suddenly the same lady paramount, who hadsecured to Dr. Lloyd the smile of the Eminence, spoke forth against him, and the Eminence frowned. 

"Dr. Lloyd, " said the Queen of the Hill, "is an amiable creature, but on this subject decidedly cracked. Cracked poets may be all thebetter for being cracked, --cracked doctors are dangerous. Besides, indeserting that old-fashioned routine, his adherence to which made hisclaim to the Hill's approbation, and unsettling the mind of the Hill withwild revolutionary theories, Dr. Lloyd has betrayed the principles onwhich the Hill itself rests its social foundations. Of those principlesDr. Fenwick has made himself champion; and the Hill is bound to supporthim. There, the question is settled!"

And it was settled. 

From the moment Mrs. Colonel Poyntz thus issued the word ofcommand, Dr. Lloyd was demolished. His practice was gone, as well as hisrepute. Mortification or anger brought on a stroke of paralysis which, disabling my opponent, put an end to our controversy. An obscureDr. Jones, who had been the special pupil and protege of Dr. Lloyd, offered himself as a candidate for the Hill's tongues and pulses. TheHill gave him little encouragement. It once more suspended its electoralprivileges, and, without insisting on calling me up to it, the Hillquietly called me in whenever its health needed other advice than that ofits visiting apothecary. Again it invited me, sometimes to dinner, often to tea; and again Miss Brabazon assured me by a sidelong glancethat it was no fault of hers if I were still single. 

I had almost forgotten the dispute which had obtained for me soconspicuous a triumph, when one winter's night I was roused from sleep bya summons to attend Dr Lloyd, who, attacked by a second stroke a fewhours previously, had, on recovering sense, expressed a vehement desireto consult the rival by whom he had suffered so severely. I dressedmyself in haste and hurried to his house. 

A February night, sharp and bitter; an iron-gray frost below, aspectral melancholy moon above. I had to ascend the Abbey Hill by asteep, blind lane between high walls. I passed through stately gates, which stood wide open, into the garden ground that surrounded the oldAbbots' House. At the end of a short carriage-drive the dark andgloomy building cleared itself from leafless skeleton trees, --the moonresting keen and cold on its abrupt gables and lofty chimney-stacks. An old woman-servant received me at the door, and, without saying aword, led me through a long low hall, and up dreary oak stairs, to abroad landing, at which she paused for a moment, listening. Roundand about hall, staircase, and landing were ranged the dead specimensof the savage world which it had been the pride of the naturalist'slife to collect. Close where I stood yawned the open jaws of the fellanaconda, its lower coils hidden, as they rested on the floorbelow, by the winding of the massive stairs. Against the dull wainscotwalls were pendent cases stored with grotesque unfamiliar mummies, seenimperfectly by the moon that shot through the window-panes, and thecandle in the old woman's hand. And as now she turned towards me, nodding her signal to follow, and went on up the shadowy passage, rows of gigantic birds--ibis and vulture, and huge sea glaucus--glaredat me in the false light of their hungry eyes. 

So I entered the sick-room, and the first glance told me that myart was powerless there. 

The children of the stricken widower were grouped round his bed, theeldest apparently about fifteen, the youngest four; one little girl--theonly female child--was clinging to her father's neck, her face pressedto his bosom, and in that room her sobs alone were loud. 

As I passed the threshold, Dr. Lloyd lifted his face, which had beenbent over the weeping child, and gazed on me with an aspect of strangeglee, which I failed to interpret. Then as I stole towards him softlyand slowly, he pressed his lips on the long fair tresses that streamedwild over his breast, motioned to a nurse who stood beside his pillow totake the child away, and in a voice clearer than I could have expected inone on whose brow lay the unmistakable hand of death, he bade the nurseand the children quit the room. All went sorrowfully, but silently, savethe little girl, who, borne off in the nurse's arms, continued to sob asif her heart were breaking. 

I was not prepared for a scene so affecting; it moved me to thequick. My eyes wistfully followed the children so soon to be orphans, asone after one went out into the dark chill shadow, and amidst thebloodless forms of the dumb brute nature, ranged in grisly vista beyondthe death-room of man. And when the last infant shape had vanished, andthe door closed with a jarring click, my sight wandered loiteringlyaround the chamber before I could bring myself to fix it on the brokenform, beside which I now stood in all that glorious vigour of frame whichhad fostered the pride of my mind. In the moment consumed by my mournfulsurvey, the whole aspect of the place impressed itself ineffaceably onlifelong remembrance. Through the high, deepsunken casement, acrosswhich the thin, faded curtain was but half drawn, the moonlight rushed, and then settled on the floor in one shroud of white glimmer, lost underthe gloom of the death-bed. The roof was low, and seemed lower still byheavy intersecting beams, which I might have touched with my lifted hand. And the tall guttering candle by the bedside, and the flicker from thefire struggling out through the fuel but newly heaped on it, threw theirreflection on the ceiling just over my head in a reek of quiveringblackness, like an angry cloud. 

Suddenly I felt my arm grasped; with his left hand (the right side wasalready lifeless) the dying man drew me towards him nearer and nearer, till his lips almost touched my ear, and, in a voice now firm, nowsplitting into gasp and hiss, thus he said, "I have summoned you to gazeon your own work! You have stricken down my life at the moment when itwas most needed by my children, and most serviceable to mankind. Had Ilived a few years longer, my children would have entered on manhood, safefrom the temptations of want and undejected by the charity of strangers. Thanks to you, they will be penniless orphans. Fellow-creaturesafflicted by maladies your pharmacopoeia had failed to reach came to mefor relief, and they found it. 'The effect of imagination, ' you say. What matters, if I directed the imagination to cure? Now you have mockedthe unhappy ones out of their last chance of life. They will suffer andperish. Did you believe me in error? Still you knew that my object wasresearch into truth. You employed against your brother in art venomousdrugs and a poisoned probe. Look at me! Are you satisfied with yourwork?"

I sought to draw back and pluck my arm from the dying man's grasp. Icould not do so without using a force that would have been inhuman. Hislips drew nearer still to my ear. 

"Vain pretender, do not boast that you brought a genius for epigram tothe service of science. Science is lenient to all who offer experimentas the test of conjecture. You are of the stuff of which inquisitors aremade. You cry that truth is profaned when your dogmas are questioned. In your shallow presumption you have meted the dominions of nature, andwhere your eye halts its vision, you say, 'There nature must close;' inthe bigotry which adds crime to presumption, you would stone thediscoverer who, in annexing new realms to her chart, unsettles yourarbitrary landmarks. Verily, retribution shall await you! In thosespaces which your sight has disdained to explore you shall yourself be alost and bewildered straggler. Hist! I see them already! The gibberingphantoms are gathering round you!"

The man's voice stopped abruptly; his eye fixed in a glazing stare;his hand relaxed its hold; he fell back on his pillow. I stole from theroom; on the landing-place I met the nurse and the old woman-servant. Happily the children were not there. But I heard the wail of the femalechild from some room not far distant. 

I whispered hurriedly to the nurse, "All is over!" passed again underthe jaws of the vast anaconda, and on through the blind lane between thedead walls, on through the ghastly streets, under the ghastly moon, wentback to my solitary home. 

CHAPTER III. 

It was some time before I could shake off the impression made on me bythe words and the look of that dying man. 

It was not that my conscience upbraided me. What had I done?Denounced that which I held, in common with most men of sense in or outof my profession, to be one of those illusions by which quackery drawsprofit from the wonder of ignorance. Was I to blame if I refused totreat with the grave respect due to asserted discovery in legitimatescience pretensions to powers akin to the fables of wizards? Was I todescend from the Academe of decorous science to examine whether aslumbering sibyl could read from a book placed at her back, or tell me atL---- what at that moment was being done by my friend at the Antipodes?

And what though Dr. Lloyd himself might be a worthy and honest man, and a sincere believer in the extravagances for which he demanded anequal credulity in others, do not honest men every day incur the penaltyof ridicule if, from a defect of good sense, they make themselvesridiculous? Could I have foreseen that a satire so justly provoked wouldinflict so deadly a wound? Was I inhumanly barbarous because theantagonist destroyed was morbidly sensitive? My conscience, therefore, made me no reproach, and the public was as little severe as my conscience. The public had been with me in our contest; the public knew nothing of myopponent's deathbed accusations; the public knew only that I had attendedhim in his last moments; it saw me walk beside the bier that bore him tohis grave; it admired the respect to his memory which I evinced in thesimple tomb that I placed over his remains, inscribed with an epitaph thatdid justice to his unquestionable benevolence and integrity; above all, itpraised the energy with which I set on foot a subscription for his orphanchildren, and the generosity with which I headed that subscription by asum that was large in proportion to my means. 

To that sum I did not, indeed, limit my contribution. The sobs of thepoor female child rang still on my heart. As her grief had been keenerthan that of her brothers, so she might be subjected to sharper trialsthan they, when the time came for her to fight her own way through theworld; therefore I secured to her, but with such precautions that thegift could not be traced to my hand, a sum to accumulate till she wasof marriageable age, and which then might suffice for a small weddingportion; or if she remained single, for an income that would place herbeyond the temptation of want, or the bitterness of a servile dependence. 

That Dr. Lloyd should have died in poverty was a matter ofsurprise at first, for his profits during the last few years had beenconsiderable, and his mode of life far from extravagant. But just beforethe date of our controversy he had been induced to assist the brother ofhis lost wife, who was a junior partner in a London bank, with the loanof his accumulated savings. This man proved dishonest; he embezzled thatand other sums intrusted to him, and fled the country. The same sentimentof conjugal affection which had cost Dr. Lloyd his fortune kept himsilent as to the cause of the loss. It was reserved for his executors todiscover the treachery of the brother-in-law whom he, poor man, wouldhave generously screened from additional disgrace. 

The Mayor of L----, a wealthy and public-spirited merchant, purchased themuseum, which Dr. Lloyd's passion for natural history had induced him toform; and the sum thus obtained, together with that raised by subscription, sufficed not only to discharge all debts due by the deceased, but toinsure to the orphans the benefits of an education that might fit atleast the boys to enter fairly armed into that game, more of skill thanof chance, in which Fortune is really so little blinded that we see, ineach turn of her wheel, wealth and its honours pass away from the laxfingers of ignorance and sloth, to the resolute grasp of labour andknowledge. 

Meanwhile a relation in a distant county undertook the charge of theorphans; they disappeared from the scene, and the tides of life in acommercial community soon flowed over the place which the dead man hadoccupied in the thoughts of his bustling townsfolk. 

One person at L----, and only one, appeared to share and inherit therancour with which the poor physician had denounced me on his death-bed. It was a gentleman named Vigors, distantly related to the deceased, and whohad been, in point of station, the most eminent of Dr. Lloyd's partisansin the controversy with myself, a man of no great scholasticacquirements, but of respectable abilities. He had that kind of powerwhich the world concedes to respectable abilities when accompaniedwith a temper more than usually stern, and a moral character more thanusually austere. His ruling passion was to sit in judgment upon others;and being a magistrate, he was the most active and the most rigid of allthe magistrates L---- had ever known. 

Mr. Vigors at first spoke of me with great bitterness, as havingruined, and in fact killed, his friend, by the uncharitable and unfairacerbity which he declared I had brought into what ought to have been anunprejudiced examination of simple matter of fact. But finding nosympathy in these charges, he had the discretion to cease from making them, contenting himself with a solemn shake of his head if he heard myname mentioned in terms of praise, and an oracular sentence or two, suchas "Time will show, " "All's well that ends well, " etc. Mr. Vigors, however, mixed very little in the more convivial intercourse of thetownspeople. He called himself domestic; but, in truth, he wasungenial, --a stiff man, starched with self-esteem. He thought that hisdignity of station was not sufficiently acknowledged by the merchants ofLow Town, and his superiority of intellect not sufficiently recognized bythe exclusives of the Hill. His visits were, therefore, chiefly confinedto the houses of neighbouring squires, to whom his reputation as amagistrate, conjoined with his solemn exterior, made him one ofthose oracles by which men consent to be awed on condition that the awe isnot often inflicted. And though he opened his house three times a week, it was only to a select few, whom he first fed and then biologized. Electro-biology was very naturally the special entertainment of a man whomno intercourse ever pleased in which his will was not imposed upon others. Therefore he only invited to his table persons whom he could stare intothe abnegation of their senses, willing to say that beef was lamb, orbrandy was coffee, according as he willed them to say. And, no doubt, thepersons asked would have said anything he willed, so long as they had, insubstance, as well as in idea, the beef and the brandy, the lamb and thecoffee. I did not, then, often meet Mr. Vigors at the houses in which Ioccasionally spent my evenings. I heard of his enmity as a man safe inhis home hears the sough of a wind on a common without. If now and thenwe chanced to pass in the streets, he looked up at me (he was a small manwalking on tiptoe) with a sullen scowl of dislike; and from the height ofmy stature, I dropped upon the small man and sullen scowl the affablesmile of supreme indifference. 

CHAPTER IV. 

I had now arrived at that age when an ambitious man, satisfied withhis progress in the world without, begins to feel in the cravings ofunsatisfied affection the void of a solitary hearth. I resolved to marry, and looked out for a wife. I had never hitherto admitted into my life thepassion of love. In fact, I had regarded that passion, even in my earlieryouth, with a certain superb contempt, --as a malady engendered by aneffeminate idleness, and fostered by a sickly imagination. 

I wished to find in a wife a rational companion, an affectionate andtrustworthy friend. No views of matrimony could be less romantic, moresoberly sensible, than those which I conceived. Nor were my requirementsmercenary or presumptuous. I cared not for fortune; I asked nothing fromconnections. My ambition was exclusively professional; it could beserved by no titled kindred, accelerated by no wealthy dower. I was noslave to beauty. I did not seek in a wife the accomplishments of afinishing-school teacher. 

Having decided that the time had come to select my helpmate, I imaginedthat I should find no difficulty in a choice that my reason would approve. But day upon day, week upon week, passed away, and though among thefamilies I visited there were many young ladies who possessed more thanthe qualifications with which I conceived that I should be amplycontented, and by whom I might flatter myself that my proposals would notbe disdained, I saw not one to whose lifelong companionship I should notinfinitely have preferred the solitude I found so irksome. 

One evening, in returning home from visiting a poor female patientwhom I attended gratuitously, and whose case demanded more thought thanthat of any other in my list, --for though it had been considered hopelessin the hospital, and she had come home to die, I felt certain that Icould save her, and she seemed recovering under my care, --one evening--itwas the fifteenth of May--I found myself just before the gates of thehouse that had been inhabited by Dr. Lloyd. Since his death the househad been unoccupied; the rent asked for it by the proprietor wasconsidered high; and from the sacred Hill on which it was situated, shyness or pride banished the wealthier traders. The garden gates stoodwide open, as they had stood on the winter night on which I had passedthrough them to the chamber of death. The remembrance of that deathbedcame vividly before me, and the dying man's fantastic threat rang again inmy startled ears. An irresistible impulse, which I could not then accountfor, and which I cannot account for now, --an impulse the reverse of thatwhich usually makes us turn away with quickened step from a spot thatrecalls associations of pain, --urged me on through the open gates up theneglected grass-grown road, urged me to look, under the weltering sun ofthe joyous spring, at that house which I bad never seen but in the gloomof a winter night, under the melancholy moon. As the building came insight, with dark-red bricks, partially overgrown with ivy, I perceivedthat it was no longer unoccupied. I saw forms passing athwart the openwindows; a van laden with articles of furniture stood before the door; aservant in livery was beside it giving directions to the men who wereunloading. Evidently some family was just entering into possession. Ifelt somewhat ashamed of my trespass, and turned round quickly to retracemy steps. I had retreated but a few yards, when I saw before me, atthe entrance gates, Mr. Vigors, walking beside a lady apparently of middleage; while, just at hand, a path cut through the shrubs gave view of asmall wicketgate at the end of the grounds. I felt unwilling not only tomeet the lady, whom I guessed to be the new occupier, and to whom I shouldhave to make a somewhat awkward apology for intrusion, but still more toencounter the scornful look of Mr. Vigors in what appeared to my pride afalse or undignified position. Involuntarily, therefore, I turned downthe path which would favour my escape unobserved. When about half waybetween the house and the wicket-gate, the shrubs that had clothed thepath on either side suddenly opened to the left, bringing into view acircle of sward, surrounded by irregular fragments of old brickworkpartially covered with ferns, creepers, or rockplants, weeds, or wildflowers; and, in the centre of the circle, a fountain, or rather well, over which was built a Gothic monastic dome, or canopy, resting on smallNorman columns, time-worn, dilapidated. A large willow overhung thisunmistakable relic of the ancient abbey. There was an air of antiquity, romance, legend about this spot, so abruptly disclosed amidst the delicategreen of the young shrubberies. But it was not the ruined wall nor theGothic well that chained my footstep and charmed my eye. 

It was a solitary human form, seated amidst the mournful ruins. 

The form was so slight, the face so young, that at the firstglance I murmured to myself, "What a lovely child!" But as my eyelingered it recognized in the upturned thoughtful brow, in the sweet, serious aspect, in the rounded outlines of that slender shape, theinexpressible dignity of virgin woman. 

A book was on her lap, at her feet a little basket, half-filledwith violets and blossoms culled from the rock-plants that nestled amidstthe ruins. Behind her, the willow, like an emerald waterfall, showereddown its arching abundant green, bough after bough, from the tree-top tothe sward, descending in wavy verdure, bright towards the summit, in thesmile of the setting sun, and darkening into shadow as it neared theearth. 

She did not notice, she did not see me; her eyes were fixed upon thehorizon, where it sloped farthest into space, above the treetops and theruins, --fixed so intently that mechanically I turned my own gaze to followthe flight of hers. It was as if she watched for some expected, familiarsign to grow out from the depths of heaven; perhaps to greet, beforeother eyes beheld it, the ray of the earliest star. 

The birds dropped from the boughs on the turf around her so fearlesslythat one alighted amidst the flowers in the little basket at her feet. There is a famous German poem, which I had read in my youth, called theMaiden from Abroad, variously supposed to be an allegory of Spring, or ofPoetry, according to the choice of commentators: it seemed to me as if thepoem had been made for her. Verily, indeed, in her, poet or painter mighthave seen an image equally true to either of those adornments of theearth; both outwardly a delight to sense, yet both wakening up thoughtswithin us, not sad, but akin to sadness. 

I heard now a step behind me, and a voice which I recognized to be thatof Mr. Vigors. I broke from the charm by which I had been so lingeringlyspell-bound, hurried on confusedly, gained the wicket-gate, from which ashort flight of stairs descended into the common thoroughfare. And therethe every-day life lay again before me. On the opposite side, houses, shops, church-spires; a few steps more, and the bustling streets! Howimmeasurably far from, yet how familiarly near to, the world in which wemove and have being is that fairy-land of romance which opens out from thehard earth before us, when Love steals at first to our side, fading backinto the hard earth again as Love smiles or sighs its farewell!

CHAPTER V. 

And before that evening I had looked on Mr. Vigors with supremeindifference! What importance he now assumed in my eyes! The lady withwhom I had seen him was doubtless the new tenant of that house in whichthe young creature by whom my heart was so strangely moved evidently hadher home. Most probably the relation between the two ladies was that ofmother and daughter. Mr. Vigors, the friend of one, might himself berelated to both, might prejudice them against me, might--Here, startingup, I snapped the thread of conjecture, for right before my eyes, on thetable beside which I had seated myself on entering my room, lay a cardof invitation:--

 MRS. POYNTZ. At Home, Wednesday, May 15th. Early. 

Mrs. Poyntz, --Mrs. Colonel Poyntz, the Queen of the Hill? There, at her house, I could not fail to learn all about the new comers, whocould never without her sanction have settled on her domain. 

I hastily changed my dress, and, with beating heart, wound my way up thevenerable eminence. 

I did not pass through the lane which led direct to Abbots' House(for that old building stood solitary amidst its grounds a little apartfrom the spacious platform on which the society of the Hill wasconcentrated), but up the broad causeway, with vistaed gaslamps; the gayershops still-unclosed, the tide of busy life only slowly ebbing from thestill-animated street, on to a square, in which the four mainthoroughfares of the city converged, and which formed the boundary of LowTown. A huge dark archway, popularly called Monk's Gate, at the angle ofthis square, made the entrance to Abbey Hill. When the arch was passed, one felt at once that one was in the town of a former day. The pavementwas narrow and rugged; the shops small, their upper stories projecting, with here and there plastered fronts, quaintly arabesque. An ascent, short, but steep and tortuous, conducted at once to the old Abbey Church, nobly situated in a vast quadrangle, round which were the genteel andgloomy dwellings of the Areopagites of the Hill. More genteel and lessgloomy than the rest--lights at the windows and flowers on thebalcony--stood forth, flanked by a garden wall at either side, the mansionof Mrs. Colonel Poyntz. 

As I entered the drawing-room, I heard the voice of the hostess; itwas a voice clear, decided, metallic, bell-like, uttering these words:"Taken Abbots' House? I will tell you. "

CHAPTER VI. 

Mrs. Poyntz was seated on the sofa; at her right sat fat Mrs. Bruce, who was a Scotch lord's grand-daughter; at her left thin Miss Brabazon, who was an Irish baronet's niece. Around her--a few seated, manystanding--had grouped all the guests, save two old gentlemen, who hadremained aloof with Colonel Poyntz near the whist-table, waiting for thefourth old gentleman who was to make up the rubber, but who was at thatmoment spell-bound in the magic circle which curiosity, that strongest ofsocial demons, had attracted round the hostess. 

"Taken Abbots' House? I will tell you. --Ah, Dr. Fenwick, charmed tosee you. You know Abbots' House is let at last? Well, Miss Brabazon, dear, you ask who has taken it. I will inform you, --a particular friendof mine. "

"Indeed! Dear me!" said Miss Brabazon, looking confused. "I hope Idid not say anything to--"

"Wound my feelings. Not in the least. You said your uncle SirPhelim employed a coachmaker named Ashleigh, that Ashleigh was an uncommonname, though Ashley was a common one; you intimated an appalling suspicionthat the Mrs. Ashleigh who had come to the Hill was the coach maker'swidow. I relieve your mind, --she is not; she is the widow of GilbertAshleigh, of Kirby Hall. "

"Gilbert Ashleigh, " said one of the guests, a bachelor, whose parentshad reared him for the Church, but who, like poor Goldsmith, did not thinkhimself good enough for it, a mistake of over-modesty, for he matured intoa very harmless creature. "Gilbert Ashleigh? I was at Oxford withhim, --a gentleman commoner of Christ Church. Good-looking man, very;sapped--"

"Sapped! what's that?--Oh, studied. That he did all his life. Hemarried young, --Anne Chaloner; she and I were girls together; married thesame year. They settled at Kirby Hall--nice place, but dull. Poyntz andI spent a Christmas there. Ashleigh when he talked was charming, but hetalked very little. Anne, when she talked, was commonplace, and shetalked very much. Naturally, poor thing, ---she was so happy. Poyntz andI did not spend another Christmas there. Friendship is long, but life isshort. Gilbert Ashleigh's life was short indeed; he died in the seventhyear of his marriage, leaving only one child, a girl. Since then, thoughI never spent another Christmas at Kirby Hall, I have frequently spent aday there, doing my best to cheer up Anne. She was no longer talkative, poor dear. Wrapped up in her child, who has now grown into a beautifulgirl of eighteen--such eyes, her father's--the real dark blue--rare; sweetcreature, but delicate; not, I hope, consumptive, but delicate; quiet, wants life. My girl Jane adores her. Jane has life enough for two. "

"Is Miss Ashleigh the heiress to Kirby Hall?" asked Mrs. Bruce, whohad an unmarried son. 

"No. Kirby Hall passed to Ashleigh Sumner, the male heir, a cousin. And the luckiest of cousins! Gilbert's sister, showy woman (indeed allshow), had contrived to marry her kinsman, Sir Walter Ashleigh Haughton, the head of the Ashleigh family, --just the man made to be the reflector ofa showy woman! He died years ago, leaving an only son, Sir James, who waskilled last winter, by a fall from his horse. And here, again, AshleighSummer proved to be the male heir-at-law. During the minority of thisfortunate youth, Mrs. Ashleigh had rented Kirby Hall of his guardian. Heis now just coming of age, and that is why she leaves. Lilian Ashleighwill have, however, a very good fortune, --is what we genteel paupers callan heiress. Is there anything more you want to know?"

Said thin Miss Brabazon, who took advantage of her thinness to wedgeherself into every one's affairs, "A most interesting account. What anice place Abbots' House could be made with a little taste! Soaristocratic! Just what I should like if I could afford it! Thedrawing-room should be done up in the Moorish style, withgeranium-coloured silk curtains, like dear Lady L----'s boudoir atTwickenham. And Mrs. Ashleigh has taken the house on lease too, Isuppose!" Here Miss Brabazon fluttered her fan angrily, and thenexclaimed, "But what on earth brings Mrs. Ashleigh here?"

Answered Mrs. Colonel Poyntz, with the military frankness by which shekept her company in good humour, as well as awe, --

"Why do any of us come here? Can any one tell me?"

There was a blank silence, which the hostess herself was the first tobreak. 

"None of us present can say why we came here. I can tell you whyMrs. Ashleigh came. Our neighbour, Mr. Vigors, is a distant connection ofthe late Gilbert Ashleigh, one of the executors to his will, and theguardian to the heir-at-law. About ten days ago Mr. Vigors called on me, for the first time since I felt it my duty to express my disapprobation ofthe strange vagaries so unhappily conceived by our poor dear friend Dr. Lloyd. And when he had taken his chair, just where you now sit, Dr. Fenwick, he said in a sepulchral voice, stretching out two fingers, so, --as if I were one of the what-do-you-call-'ems who go to sleep when hebids them, 'Marm, you know Mrs. Ashleigh? You correspond with her?''Yes, Mr. Vigors; is there any crime in that? You look as if there were. ''No crime, marm, ' said the man, quite seriously. 'Mrs. Ashleigh is a ladyof amiable temper, and you are a woman of masculine understanding. '"

Here there was a general titter. Mrs. Colonel Poyntz hushed itwith a look of severe surprise. "What is there to laugh at? All womenwould be men if they could. If my understanding is masculine, so much thebetter for me. I thanked Mr. Vigors for his very handsome compliment, andhe then went on to say that though Mrs. Ashleigh would now have to leaveKirby Hall in a very few weeks, she seemed quite unable to make up hermind where to go; that it had occurred to him that, as Miss Ashleigh wasof an age to see a little of the world, she ought not to remain buried inthe country; while, being of quiet mind, she recoiled from the dissipationof London. Between the seclusion of the one and the turmoil of the other, the society of L---- was a happy medium. He should be glad of my opinion. He had put off asking for it, because he owned his belief that I hadbehaved unkindly to his lamented friend, Dr. Lloyd; but he now foundhimself in rather an awkward position. His ward, young Sumner, hadprudently resolved on fixing his country residence at Kirby Hall, ratherthan at Haughton Park, the much larger seat which had so suddenly passedto his inheritance, and which he could not occupy without a vastestablishment, that to a single man, so young, would be but a cumbersomeand costly trouble. Mr. Vigors was pledged to his ward to obtain himpossession of Kirby Hall, the precise day agreed upon, but Mrs. Ashleighdid not seem disposed to stir, --could not decide where else to go. Mr. Vigors was loth to press hard on his old friend's widow and child. It wasa thousand pities Mrs Ashleigh could not make up her mind; she had hadample time for preparation. A word from me at this moment would be aneffective kindness. Abbots' House was vacant, with a garden so extensivethat the ladies would not miss the country. Another party was after it, but--'Say no more, ' I cried; 'no party but my dear old friend AnneAshleigh shall have Abbots' House. So that question is settled. ' Idismissed Mr. Vigors, sent for my carriage, that is, for Mr. Barker'syellow fly and his best horses, --and drove that very day to Kirby Hall, which, though not in this county, is only twenty-five miles distant. Islept there that night. By nine o'clock the next morning I had securedMrs. Ashleigh's consent, on the promise to save her all trouble; cameback, sent for the landlord, settled the rent, lease, agreement; engagedForbes' vans to remove the furniture from Kirby Hall; told Forbes to beginwith the beds. When her own bed came, which was last night, Anne Ashleighcame too. I have seen her this morning. She likes the place, so doesLilian. I asked them to meet you all here to-night; but Mrs. Ashleighwas tired. The last of the furniture was to arrive today; and though dearMrs. Ashleigh is an undecided character, she is not inactive. But it isnot only the planning where to put tables and chairs that would havetried her today: she has had Mr. Vigors on her hands all the afternoon, and he has been--here's her little note--what are the words? No doubt'most overpowering and oppressive;' no, 'most kind and attentive, '--different words, but, as applied to Mr. Vigors, they mean the same thing. 

"And now, next Monday---we must leave them in peace till then--youwill all call on the Ashleighs. The Hill knows what is due to itself; itcannot delegate to Mr. Vigors, a respectable man indeed, but who doesnot belong to its set, its own proper course of action towards thosewho would shelter themselves on its bosom. The Hill cannot be kind andattentive, overpowering or oppressive by proxy. To those newborninto its family circle it cannot be an indifferent godmother; it hastowards them all the feelings of a mother, --or of a stepmother, asthe case may be. Where it says 'This can be no child of mine, ' it is astepmother indeed; but in all those whom I have presented to itsarms, it has hitherto, I am proud to say, recognized desirableacquaintances, and to them the Hill has been a mother. And now, my dear Mr. Sloman, go to your rubber; Poyntz is impatient, though hedon't show it. Miss Brabazon, love, we all long to see you seatedat the piano, --you play so divinely! Something gay, if you please;something gay, but not very noisy, --Mr. Leopold Symthe will turn theleaves for you. Mrs. Bruce, your own favourite set at vingt-un, withfour new recruits. Dr. Fenwick, you are like me, don't play cards, anddon't care for music; sit here, and talk or not, as you please, while Iknit. "

The other guests thus disposed of, some at the card-tables, some roundthe piano, I placed myself at Mrs. Poyntz's side, on a seat niched in therecess of a window which an evening unusually warm for the month of Maypermitted to be left open. I was next to one who had known Lilian as achild, one from whom I had learned by what sweet name to call the imagewhich my thoughts had already shrined. How much that I still longed toknow she could tell me! But in what form of question could I lead to thesubject, yet not betray my absorbing interest in it? Longing to speak, Ifelt as if stricken dumb; stealing an unquiet glance towards the facebeside me, and deeply impressed with that truth which the Hill had longago reverently acknowledged, --namely, that Mrs. Colonel Poyntz was a verysuperior woman, a very powerful creature. 

And there she sat knitting, rapidly, firmly; a woman somewhat onthe other side of forty, complexion a bronze paleness, hair a bronzebrown, in strong ringlets cropped short behind, --handsome hair for a man;lips that, when closed, showed inflexible decision, when speaking, becamesupple and flexible with an easy humour and a vigilant finesse; eyes of ared hazel, quick but steady, --observing, piercing, dauntless eyes;altogether a fine countenance, --would have been a very fine countenance ina man; profile sharp, straight, clear-cut, with an expression, when inrepose, like that of a sphinx; a frame robust, not corpulent; of middleheight, but with an air and carriage that made her appear tall; peculiarlywhite firm hands, indicative of vigorous health, not a vein visible on thesurface. 

There she sat knitting, knitting, and I by her side, gazing now onherself, now on her work, with a vague idea that the threads in the skeinof my own web of love or of life were passing quick through thosenoiseless fingers. And, indeed, in every web of romance, the fondest, oneof the Parcae is sure to be some matter-of-fact She, Social Destiny, aslittle akin to romance herself as was this worldly Queen of the Hill. 

CHAPTER VII. 

I have given a sketch of the outward woman of Mrs. Colonel Poyntz. Theinner woman was a recondite mystery deep as that of the sphinx, whosefeatures her own resembled. But between the outward and the inward womanthere is ever a third woman, --the conventional woman, --such as the wholehuman being appears to the world, --always mantled, sometimes masked. 

I am told that the fine people of London do not recognize thetitle of "Mrs. Colonel. " If that be true, the fine people of London mustbe clearly in the wrong, for no people in the universe could be finer thanthe fine people of Abbey Hill; and they considered their sovereign hadas good a right to the title of Mrs. Colonel as the Queen of Englandhas to that of "our Gracious Lady. " But Mrs. Poyntz herself neverassumed the title of Mrs. Colonel; it never appeared on her cards, --anymore than the title of "Gracious Lady" appears on the cards whichconvey the invitation that a Lord Steward or Lord Chamberlain iscommanded by her Majesty to issue. To titles, indeed, Mrs. Poyntzevinced no superstitious reverence. Two peeresses, related to her, notdistantly, were in the habit of paying her a yearly visit whichlasted two or three days. The Hill considered these visits an honour toits eminence. Mrs. Poyntz never seemed to esteem them an honour toherself; never boasted of them; never sought to show off her grandrelations, nor put herself the least out of the way to receivethem. Her mode of life was free from ostentation. She had the advantageof being a few hundreds a year richer than any other inhabitant ofthe Hill; but she did not devote her superior resources to theinvidious exhibition of superior splendour. Like a wise sovereign, therevenues of her exchequer were applied to the benefit of her subjects, andnot to the vanity of egotistical parade. As no one else on the Hillkept a carriage, she declined to keep one. Her entertainments weresimple, but numerous. Twice a week she received the Hill, and wasgenuinely at home to it. She contrived to make her parties proverbiallyagreeable. The refreshments were of the same kind as those which thepoorest of her old maids of honour might proffer; but they were better oftheir kind, the best of their kind, --the best tea, the best lemonade, thebest cakes. Her rooms had an air of comfort, which was peculiar to them. They looked like rooms accustomed to receive, and receive in a friendlyway; well warmed, well lighted, card-tables and piano each in the placethat made cards and music inviting; on the walls a few old familyportraits, and three or four other pictures said to be valuable andcertainly pleasing, --two Watteaus, a Canaletti, a Weenix; plenty ofeasy-chairs and settees covered with a cheerful chintz, --in thearrangement of the furniture generally an indescribable careless elegance. She herself was studiously plain in dress, more conspicuously free fromjewelry and trinkets than any married lady on the Hill. But I have heardfrom those who were authorities on such a subject that she was neverseen in a dress of the last year's fashion. She adopted the mode as itcame out, just enough to show that she was aware it was out; butwith a sober reserve, as much as to say, "I adopt the fashion as far asit suits myself; I do not permit the fashion to adopt me. " In short, Mrs. Colonel Poyntz was sometimes rough, sometimes coarse, alwaysmasculine, and yet somehow or other masculine in a womanly way;but she was never vulgar because never affected. It was impossiblenot to allow that she was a thorough gentlewoman, and she could do thingsthat lower other gentlewomen, without any loss of dignity. Thusshe was an admirable mimic, certainly in itself the least ladylikecondescension of humour. But when she mimicked, it was with sotranquil a gravity, or so royal a good humour, that one could onlysay, "What talents for society dear Mrs. Colonel has!" As she wasa gentlewoman emphatically, so the other colonel, the he-colonel, was emphatically a gentleman; rather shy, but not cold; hating troubleof every kind, pleased to seem a cipher in his own house. If thesole study of Mrs. Colonel had been to make her husband comfortable, she could not have succeeded better than by bringing friends about himand then taking them off his hands. Colonel Poyntz, the he-colonel, had seen, in his youth, actual service; but had retired from hisprofession many years ago, shortly after his marriage. He was ayounger brother of one of the principal squires in the country;inherited the house he lived in, with some other valuable propertyin and about L----, from an uncle; was considered a good landlord; andpopular in Low Town, though he never interfered in its affairs. He waspunctiliously neat in his dress; a thin youthful figure, crowned with athick youthful wig. He never seemed to read anything but the newspapersand the "Meteorological Journal:" was supposed to be the most weatherwiseman in all L----. He had another intellectual predilection, --whist;but in that he had less reputation for wisdom. Perhaps it requires ararer combination of mental faculties to win an odd trick than todivine a fall in the glass. For the rest, the he-colonel, manyyears older than his wife, despite the thin youthful figure, was anadmirable aid-de-camp to the general in command, Mrs. Colonel; andshe could not have found one more obedient, more devoted, or moreproud of a distinguished chief. 

In giving to Mrs. Colonel Poyntz the appellation of Queen of theHill, let there be no mistake. She was not a constitutional sovereign;her monarchy was absolute. All her proclamations had the force of laws. 

Such ascendancy could not have been attained without considerabletalents for acquiring and keeping it. Amidst all her off-hand, brisk, imperious frankness, she had the ineffable discrimination of tact. Whether civil or rude, she was never civil or rude but what she carriedpublic opinion along with her. Her knowledge of general society musthave been limited, as must be that of all female sovereigns; but sheseemed gifted with an intuitive knowledge of human nature, which sheapplied to her special ambition of ruling it. I have not a doubt that ifshe had been suddenly transferred, a perfect stranger, to the world ofLondon, she would have soon forced her way to its selectest circles, and, when once there, held her own against a duchess. 

I have said that she was not affected: this might be one cause ofher sway over a set in which nearly every other woman was trying rather toseem, than to be, a somebody. 

Put if Mrs. Colonel Poyntz was not artificial, she was artful, orperhaps I might more justly say artistic. In all she said and did therewere conduct, system, plan. She could be a most serviceable friend, amost damaging enemy; yet I believe she seldom indulged in strong likingsor strong hatreds. All was policy, --a policy akin to that of a grandparty chief, determined to raise up those whom, for any reason of state, it was prudent to favour, and to put down those whom, for any reason ofstate, it was expedient to humble or to crush. 

Ever since the controversy with Dr. Lloyd, this lady had honoured mewith her benignest countenance; and nothing could be more adroit than themanner in which, while imposing me on others as an oracular authority, shesought to subject to her will the oracle itself. 

She was in the habit of addressing me in a sort of motherly way, as if she had the deepest interest in my welfare, happiness, andreputation. And thus, in every compliment, in every seeming mark ofrespect, she maintained the superior dignity of one who takes fromresponsible station the duty to encourage rising merit; so that, somehowor other, despite all that pride which made me believe that I needed nohelping and to advance or to clear my way through the world, I could notshake off from my mind the impression that I was mysteriously patronizedby Mrs. Colonel Poyntz. 

We might have sat together five minutes, side by side in silence ascomplete as if in the cave of Trophonius--when without looking up from herwork, Mrs. Poyntz said abruptly, --

"I am thinking about you, Dr. Fenwick. And you--are thinkingabout some other woman. Ungrateful man!"

"Unjust accusation! My very silence should prove how intently mythoughts were fixed on you, and on the weird web which springs under yourhand in meshes that bewilder the gaze and snare the attention. "

Mrs. Poyntz looked up at me for a moment--one rapid glance of thebright red hazel eye--and said, --

"Was I really in your thoughts? Answer truly. "

"Truly, I answer, you were. "

"That is strange! Who can it be?"

"Who can it be? What do you mean?"

"If you were thinking of me, it was in connection with some otherperson, --some other person of my own sex. It is certainly not poor dearMiss Brabazon. Who else can it be?"

Again the red eye shot over me, and I felt my cheek redden beneath it. 

"Hush!" she said, lowering her voice; "you are in love!"

"In love!--I! Permit me to ask you why you think so?"

"The signs are unmistakable; you are altered in your manner, even inthe expression of your face, since I last saw you; your manner isgenerally quiet and observant, --it is now restless and distracted; yourexpression of face is generally proud and serene, --it is now humbled andtroubled. You have something on your mind! It is not anxiety for yourreputation, --that is established; nor for your fortune, --that is made; itis not anxiety for a patient or you would scarcely be here. But anxietyit is, --an anxiety that is remote from your profession, that touches yourheart and is new to it!"

I was startled, almost awed; but I tried to cover my confusion with aforced laugh. 

"Profound observer! Subtle analyst! You have convinced me that I mustbe in love, though I did not suspect it before. But when I strive toconjecture the object, I am as much perplexed as yourself; and with you, Iask, who can it be?"

"Whoever it be, " said Mrs. Poyntz, who had paused, while I spoke, fromher knitting, and now resumed it very slowly and very carefully, as if hermind and her knitting worked in unison together, --"whoever it be, love inyou would be serious; and, with or without love, marriage is a seriousthing to us all. It is not every pretty girl that would suit AllenFenwick. "

"Alas! is there any pretty girl whom Allen Fenwick would suit?"

"Tut! You should be above the fretful vanity that lays traps for acompliment. Yes; the time has come in your life and your career when youwould do well to marry. I give my consent to that, " she added with asmile as if in jest, and a slight nod as if in earnest. The knitting herewent on more decidedly, more quickly. "But I do not yet see the person. No! 'T is a pity, Allen Fenwick" (whenever Mrs. Poyntz called me by myChristian name, she always assumed her majestic motherly manner), --"apity that, with your birth, energies, perseverance, talents, and, let meadd, your advantages of manner and person, --a pity that you did not choosea career that might achieve higher fortunes and louder fame than the mostbrilliant success can give to a provincial physician. But in that verychoice you interest me. My choice has been much thesame, --a small circle, but the first in it. Yet, had I been a man, or had my dear Colonel been aman whom it was in the power of a woman's art to raise one step higher inthat metaphorical ladder which is not the ladder of the angels, why, then--what then? No matter! I am contented. I transfer my ambition toJane. Do you not think her handsome?"

"There can be no doubt of that, " said I, carelessly and naturally. 

"I have settled Jane's lot in my own mind, " resumed Mrs. Poyntz, striking firm into another row of knitting. "She will marry a countrygentleman of large estate. He will go into parliament. She will studyhis advancement as I study Poyntz's comfort. If he be clever, she willhelp to make him a minister; if he be not clever, his wealth will makeher a personage, and lift him into a personage's husband. And, now thatyou see I have no matrimonial designs on you, Allen Fenwick, think if itwill be worth while to confide in me. Possibly I may be useful--"

"I know not how to thank you; but, as yet, I have nothing to confide. "

While thus saying, I turned my eyes towards the open window besidewhich I sat. It was a beautiful soft night, the May moon in all hersplendour. The town stretched, far and wide, below with all itsnumberless lights, --below, but somewhat distant; an intervening space wascovered, here, by the broad quadrangle (in the midst of which stood, massive and lonely, the grand old church), and, there, by the gardens andscattered cottages or mansions that clothed the sides of the hill. 

"Is not that house, " I said, after a short pause, "yonder with thethree gables, the one in which--in which poor Dr. Lloyd lived--Abbots'House?"

I spoke abruptly, as if to intimate my desire to change thesubject of conversation. My hostess stopped her knitting, half rose, looked forth. 

"Yes. But what a lovely night! How is it that the moon blendsinto harmony things of which the sun only marks the contrast? Thatstately old church tower, gray with its thousand years, those vulgartile-roofs and chimney-pots raw in the freshness of yesterday, --now, under the moonlight, all melt into one indivisible charm!"

As my hostess thus spoke, she had left her seat, taking her workwith her, and passed from the window into the balcony. It was not oftenthat Mrs. Poyntz condescended to admit what is called "sentiment" into therange of her sharp, practical, worldly talk; but she did so attimes, --always, when she did, giving me the notion of an intellect muchtoo comprehensive not to allow that sentiment has a place in this life, but keeping it in its proper place, by that mixture of affability andindifference with which some high-born beauty allows the genius, butchecks the presumption, of a charming and penniless poet. For a fewminutes her eyes roved over the scene in evident enjoyment; then, as theyslowly settled upon the three gables of Abbots' House, her face regainedthat something of hardness which belonged to its decided character; herfingers again mechanically resumed her knitting, and she said, in herclear, unsoftened, metallic chime of voice, "Can you guess why I took somuch trouble to oblige Mr. Vigors and locate Mrs. Ashleigh yonder?"

"You favoured us with a full explanation of your reasons. "

"Some of my reasons; not the main one. People who undertake the taskof governing others, as I do, be their rule a kingdom or a hamlet, mustadopt a principle of government and adhere to it. The principle thatsuits best with the Hill is Respect for the Proprieties. We have not muchmoney; entre nous, we have no great rank. Our policy is, then, to set upthe Proprieties as an influence which money must court and rank is afraidof. I had learned just before Mr. Vigors called on me that Lady SarahBellasis entertained the idea of hiring Abbots' House. London has set itsface against her; a provincial town would be more charitable. An earl'sdaughter, with a good income and an awfully bad name, of the best mannersand of the worst morals, would have made sad havoc among the Proprieties. How many of our primmest old maids would have deserted tea and Mrs. Poyntzfor champagne and her ladyship! The Hill was never in so imminentadanger. Rather than Lady Sarah Bellasis should have had that house, Iwould have taken it myself, and stocked it with owls. 

"Mrs. Ashleigh turned up just in the critical moment. Lady Sarah isfoiled, the Proprieties safe, and so that question is settled. "

"And it will be pleasant to have your early friend so near you. "

Mrs. Poyntz lifted her eyes full upon me. 

"Do you know Mrs. Ashleigh?"

"Not in the least. "

"She has many virtues and few ideas. She is commonplace weak, as I amcommonplace strong. But commonplace weak can be very lovable. Herhusband, a man of genius and learning, gave her his whole heart, --a heartworth having; but he was not ambitious, and he despised the world. "

"I think you said your daughter was very much attached to MissAshleigh? Does her character resemble her mother's?"

I was afraid while I spoke that I should again meet Mrs. Poyntz'ssearching gaze, but she did not this time look up from her work. 

"No; Lilian is anything but commonplace. "

"You described her as having delicate health; you implied a hopethat she was not consumptive. I trust that there is no serious reason forapprehending a constitutional tendency which at her age would require themost careful watching!"

"I trust not. If she were to die--Dr. Fenwick, what is the matter?"

So terrible had been the picture which this woman's words had broughtbefore me, that I started as if my own life had received a shock. 

"I beg pardon, " I said falteringly, pressing my hand to my heart; "asudden spasm here, --it is over now. You were saying that--that--"

"I was about to say-" and here Mrs. Poyntz laid her hand lightlyon mine, --"I was about to say that if Lilian Ashleigh were to die, Ishould mourn for her less than I might for one who valued the things ofthe earth more. But I believe there is no cause for the alarm my words soinconsiderately excited in you. Her mother is watchful and devoted; andif the least thing ailed Lilian, she would call in medical advice. Mr. Vigors would, I know, recommend Dr. Jones. "

Closing our conference with those stinging words, Mrs. Poyntz hereturned back into the drawing-room. 

I remained some minutes on the balcony, disconcerted, enraged. Withwhat consummate art had this practised diplomatist wound herself into mysecret! That she had read my heart better than myself was evident fromthat Parthian shaft, barbed with Dr. Jones, which she had shot over hershoulder in retreat. That from the first moment in which she had decoyedme to her side, she had detected "the something" on my mind, was perhapsbut the ordinary quickness of female penetration. But it was with noordinary craft that the whole conversation afterwards had been so shapedas to learn the something, and lead me to reveal the some one to whom thesomething was linked. For what purpose? What was it to her? What motivecould she have beyond the mere gratification of curiosity? Perhaps, atfirst, she thought I had been caught by her daughter's showy beauty, andhence the half-friendly, half-cynical frankness with which she had avowedher ambitious projects for that young lady's matrimonial advancement. Satisfied by my manner that I cherished no presumptuous hopes in thatquarter, her scrutiny was doubtless continued from that pleasure in theexercise of a wily intellect which impels schemers and politicians to anactivity for which, without that pleasure itself, there would seem noadequate inducement. And besides, the ruling passion of this pettysovereign was power; and if knowledge be power, there is no betterinstrument of power over a contumacious subject than that hold on hisheart which is gained in the knowledge of its secret. 

But "secret"! Had it really come to this? Was it possible that themere sight of a human face, never beheld before, could disturb the wholetenor of my life, --a stranger of whose mind and character I knew nothing, whose very voice I had never heard? It was only by the intolerable pangof anguish that had rent my heart in the words, carelessly, abruptlyspoken, "if she were to die, " that I had felt how the world would bechanged to me, if indeed that face were seen in it no more! Yes, secretit was no longer to myself, I loved! And like all on whom love descends, sometimes softly, slowly, with the gradual wing of the cushat settlingdown into its nest, sometimes with the swoop of the eagle on hisunsuspecting quarry, I believed that none ever before loved as I loved;that such love was an abnormal wonder, made solely for me, and I for it. Then my mind insensibly hushed its angrier and more turbulent thoughts, asmy gaze rested upon the roof-tops of Lilian's home, and the shimmeringsilver of the moonlit willow, under which I had seen her gazing into theroseate heavens. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

When I returned to the drawing-room, the party was evidently about tobreak up. Those who had grouped round the piano were now assembled roundthe refreshment-table. The cardplayers had risen, and were settling ordiscussing gains and losses. While I was searching for my hat, which Ihad somewhere mislaid, a poor gentleman, tormented by tic-doloureux, crepttimidly up to me, --the proudest and the poorest of all the hidalgossettled on the Hill. He could not afford a fee for a physician's advice;but pain had humbled his pride, and I saw at a glance that he wasconsidering how to take a surreptitious advantage of social intercourse, and obtain the advice without paying the fee. The old man discovered thehat before I did, stooped, took it up, extended it to me with the profoundbow of the old school, while the other hand, clenched and quivering, waspressed into the hollow of his cheek, and his eyes met mine with wistfulmute entreaty. The instinct of my profession seized me at once. I couldnever behold suffering without forgetting all else in the desire torelieve it. 

"You are in pain, " said I, softly. "Sit down and describe thesymptoms. Here, it is true, I am no professional doctor, but I am afriend who is fond of doctoring, and knows something about it. "

So we sat down a little apart from the other guests, and after afew questions and answers, I was pleased to find that his "tic" did notbelong to the less curable kind of that agonizing neuralgia. I wasespecially successful in my treatment of similar sufferings, for which Ihad discovered an anodyne that was almost specific. I wrote on a leaf ofmy pocketbook a prescription which I felt sure would be efficacious, andas I tore it out and placed it in his hand, I chanced to look up, and sawthe hazel eyes of my hostess fixed upon me with a kinder and softerexpression than they often condescended to admit into their cold andpenetrating lustre. At that moment, however, her attention was drawn fromme to a servant, who entered with a note, and I heard him say, though inan undertone, "From Mrs. Ashleigh. "

She opened the note, read it hastily, ordered the servant to waitwithout the door, retired to her writing-table, which stood near the placeat which I still lingered, rested her face on her hand, and seemed musing. Her meditation was very soon over. She turned her head, and to mysurprise, beckoned to me. I approached. 

"Sit here, " she whispered: "turn your back towards those people, who are nodoubt watching us. Read this. "

She placed in my hand the note she had just received. It contained buta few words, to this effect:--

 DEAR MARGARET, --I am so distressed. Since I wrote to you a few hours ago, Lilian is taken suddenly ill, and I fear seriously. What medical man should I send for? Let my servant have his name and address. 

 A. A. 

I sprang from my seat. 

"Stay, " said Mrs. Poyntz. "Would you much care if I sent the servant toDr. Jones?"

"Ah, madam, you are cruel! What have I done that you should become myenemy?"

"Enemy! No. You have just befriended one of my friends. In this worldof fools intellect should ally itself with intellect. No; I am not yourenemy! But you have not yet asked me to be your friend. "

Here she put into my hands a note she had written while thus speaking. "Receive your credentials. If there be any cause for alarm, or if I canbe of use, send for me. " Resuming the work she had suspended, but withlingering, uncertain fingers, she added, "So far, then, this is settled. Nay, no thanks; it is but little that is settled as yet. "

CHAPTER IX. 

In a very few minutes I was once more in the grounds of that old gablehouse; the servant, who went before me, entered them by the stairs andthe wicket-gate of the private entrance; that way was the shortest. Soagain I passed by the circling glade and the monastic well, --sward, trees, and ruins all suffused in the limpid moonlight. 

And now I was in the house; the servant took up-stairs the notewith which I was charged, and a minute or two afterwards returned andconducted me to the corridor above, in which Mrs. Ashleigh received me. Iwas the first to speak. 

"Your daughter--is--is--not seriously ill, I hope. What is it?"

"Hush!" she said, under her breath. "Will you step this way fora moment?" She passed through a doorway to the right. I followed her, and as she placed on the table the light she had been holding, I lookedround with a chill at the heart, --it was the room in which Dr. Lloyd haddied. Impossible to mistake. The furniture indeed was changed, there wasno bed in the chamber; but the shape of the room, the position of the highcasement, which was now wide open, and through which the moonlightstreamed more softly than on that drear winter night, the great squarebeams intersecting the low ceiling, --all were impressed vividly on mymemory. The chair to which Mrs. Ashleigh beckoned me was placed just onthe spot where I had stood by the bedhead of the dying man. 

I shrank back, --I could not have seated myself there. So I remainedleaning against the chimney-piece, while Mrs. Ashleigh told her story. 

She said that on their arrival the day before, Lilian had been in morethan usually good health and spirits, delighted with the old house, thegrounds, and especially the nook by the Monk's Well, at which Mrs. Ashleigh had left her that evening in order to make some purchases in thetown, in company with Mr. Vigors. When Mrs. Ashleigh returned, she andMr. Vigors had sought Lilian in that nook, and Mrs. Ashleigh thendetected, with a mother's eye, some change in Lilian which alarmed her. She seemed listless and dejected, and was very pale; but she denied thatshe felt unwell. On regaining the house she had sat down in the room inwhich we then were, --"which, " said Mrs. Ashleigh, "as it is not requiredfor a sleeping-room, my daughter, who is fond of reading, wished to fit upas her own morning-room, or study. I left her here and went into thedrawing-room below with Mr. Vigors. When he quitted me, which he did verysoon, I remained for nearly an hour giving directions about the placing offurniture, which had just arrived, from our late residence. I then wentup-stairs to join my daughter, and to my terror found her apparentlylifeless in her chair. She had fainted away. "

I interrupted Mrs. Ashleigh here. "Has Miss Ashleigh been subjectto fainting fits?"

"No, never. When she recovered she seemed bewildered, disinclinedto speak. I got her to bed, and as she then fell quietly to sleep, mymind was relieved. I thought it only a passing effect of excitement, in achange of abode; or caused by something like malaria in the atmosphere ofthat part of the grounds in which I had found her seated. "

"Very likely. The hour of sunset at this time of year is trying todelicate constitutions. Go on. "

"About three quarters of an hour ago she woke up with a loud cry, andhas been ever since in a state of great agitation, weeping violently, andanswering none of my questions. Yet she does not seem light-headed, but rather what we call hysterical. "

"You will permit me now to see her. Take comfort; in all you tell me Isee nothing to warrant serious alarm. "

CHAPTER X. 

To the true physician there is an inexpressible sanctity in the sickchamber. At its threshold the more human passions quit their hold on hisheart. Love there would be profanation; even the grief permitted toothers he must put aside. He must enter that room--a calm intelligence. He is disabled for his mission if he suffer aught to obscure the keenquiet glance of his science. Age or youth, beauty or deformity, innocenceor guilt, merge their distinctions in one common attribute, -humansuffering appealing to human skill. 

Woe to the households in which the trusted Healer feels not on hisconscience the solemn obligations of his glorious art! Reverently as in atemple, I stood in the virgin's chamber. When her mother placed her handin mine, and I felt the throb of its pulse, I was aware of no quicker beatof my own heart. I looked with a steady eye on the face more beautifulfrom the flush that deepened the delicate hues of the young cheek, and thelustre that brightened the dark blue of the wandering eyes. She did notat first heed me, did not seem aware of my presence; but kept murmuring toherself words which I could not distinguish. 

At length, when I spoke to her, in that low, soothing tone which welearn at the sick-bed, the expression of her face altered suddenly; shepassed the hand I did not hold over her forehead, turned round, looked atme full and long, with unmistakable surprise, yet not as if the surprisedispleased her, --less the surprise which recoils from the sight of astranger than that which seems doubtfully to recognize an unexpectedfriend. Yet on the surprise there seemed to creep something ofapprehension, of fear; her hand trembled, her voice quivered, as shesaid, --

"Can it be, can it be? Am I awake? Mother, who is this?"

"Only a kind visitor, Dr. Fenwick, sent by Mrs. Poyntz, for I was uneasyabout you, darling. How are you now?"

"Better. Strangely better. "

She removed her hand gently from mine, and with an involuntary modestshrinking turned towards Mrs. Ashleigh, drawing her mother towardsherself, so that she became at once hidden from me. 

Satisfied that there was here no delirium, nor even more than theslight and temporary fever which often accompanies a sudden nervous attackin constitutions peculiarly sensitive, I retired noiselessly from theroom, and went, not into that which had been occupied by the ill-fatedNaturalist, but down-stairs into the drawing-room, to write myprescription. I had already sent the servant off with it to the chemist'sbefore Mrs. Ashleigh joined me. 

"She seems recovering surprisingly; her forehead is cooler; she isperfectly self-possessed, only she cannot account for her ownseizure, --cannot account either for the fainting or the agitation withwhich she awoke from sleep. "

"I think I can account for both. The first room in which sheentered--that in which she fainted--had its window open; the sides of thewindow are overgrown with rank creeping plants in full blossom. MissAshleigh had already predisposed herself to injurious effects from theeffluvia by fatigue, excitement, imprudence in sitting out at the fall ofa heavy dew. The sleep after the fainting fit was the more disturbed, because Nature, always alert and active in subjects so young, was makingits own effort to right itself from an injury. Nature has nearlysucceeded. What I have prescribed will a little aid and accelerate thatwhich Nature has yet to do, and in a day or two I do not doubt that yourdaughter will be perfectly restored. Only let me recommend care to avoidexposure to the open air during the close of the day. Let her avoid alsothe room in which she was first seized, for it is a strange phenomenon innervous temperaments that a nervous attack may, without visible cause, berepeated in the same place where it was first experienced. You had bettershut up the chamber for at least some weeks, burn fires in it, repaint andpaper it, sprinkle chloroform. You are not, perhaps, aware that Dr. Lloyddied in that room after a prolonged illness. Suffer me to wait till yourservant returns with the medicine, and let me employ the interval inasking you a few questions. Miss Ashleigh, you say, never had a faintingfit before. I should presume that she is not what we call strong. Buthas she ever had any illness that alarmed you?"

"Never. "

"No great liability to cold and cough, to attacks of the chest or lungs?"

"Certainly not. Still I have feared that she may have a tendency toconsumption. Do you think so? Your questions alarm me!"

"I do not think so; but before I pronounce a positive opinion, onequestion more. You say you have feared a tendency to consumption. Isthat disease in her family? She certainly did not inherit it from you. But on her father's side?"

"Her father, " said Mrs. Ashleigh, with tears in her eyes, "died young, but of brain fever, which the medical men said was brought on by overstudy. "

"Enough, my dear madam. What you say confirms my belief that yourdaughter's constitution is the very opposite to that in which the seeds ofconsumption lurk. It is rather that far nobler constitution, which thekeenness of the nervous susceptibility renders delicate but elastic, --asquick to recover as it is to suffer. "

"Thank you, thank you, Dr. Fenwick, for what you say. You take a loadfrom my heart; for Mr. Vigors, I know, thinks Lilian consumptive, and Mrs. Poyntz has rather frightened me at times by hints to the same effect. Butwhen you speak of nervous susceptibility, I do not quite understand you. My daughter is not what is commonly called nervous. Her temper issingularly even. "

"But if not excitable, should you also say that she is notimpressionable? The things which do not disturb her temper may, perhaps, deject her spirits. Do I make myself understood?"

"Yes, I think I understand your distinction; but I am not quite sure ifit applies. To most things that affect the spirits she is not moresensitive than other girls, perhaps less so; but she is certainlyvery impressionable in some things. "

"In what?"

"She is more moved than any one I ever knew by objects in externalnature, rural scenery, rural sounds, by music, by the books that shereads, --even books that are not works of imagination. Perhaps in all thisshe takes after her poor father, but in a more marked degree, --at least, Iobserve it more in her; for he was very silent and reserved. And perhapsalso her peculiarities have been fostered by the seclusion in which shehas been brought up. It was with a view to make her a little more likegirls of her own age that our friend, Mrs. Poyntz, induced me to comehere. Lilian was reconciled to this change; but she shrank from thethoughts of London, which I should have preferred. Her poor father couldnot endure London. "

"Miss Ashleigh is fond of reading?"

"Yes, she is fond of reading, but more fond of musing. She will sit byherself for hours without book or work, and seem as abstracted as if in adream. She was so even in her earliest childhood. Then she would tell mewhat she had been conjuring up to herself. She would say that she hadseen--positively seen--beautiful lands far away from earth; flowers andtrees not like ours. As she grew older this visionary talk displeased me, and I scolded her, and said that if others heard her, they would thinkthat she was not only silly but very untruthful. So of late years shenever ventures to tell me what, in such dreamy moments, she suffersherself to imagine; but the habit of musing continues still. Do you notagree with Mrs. Poyntz that the best cure would be a little cheerfulsociety amongst other young people?"

"Certainly, " said I, honestly, though with a jealous pang. "But herecomes the medicine. Will you take it up to her, and then sit with herhalf an hour or so? By that time I expect she will be asleep. I willwait here till you return. Oh, I can amuse myself with the newspapers andbooks on your table. Stay! one caution: be sure there are no flowers inMiss Ashleigh's sleeping-room. I think I saw a treacherous rose-tree in astand by the window. If so, banish it. "

Left alone, I examined the room in which, oh, thought of joy! I hadsurely now won the claim to become a privileged guest. I touched thebooks Lilian must have touched; in the articles of furniture, as yet sohastily disposed that the settled look of home was not about them, Istill knew that I was gazing on things which her mind must associate withthe history of her young life. That luteharp must be surely hers, and thescarf, with a girl's favourite colours, --pure white and pale blue, --andthe bird-cage, and the childish ivory work-case, with implements toopretty for use, --all spoke of her. 

It was a blissful, intoxicating revery, which Mrs. Ashleigh's entrancedisturbed. 

Lilian was sleeping calmly. I had no excuse to linger there any longer. 

"I leave you, I trust, with your mind quite at ease, " said I. "You willallow me to call to-morrow, in the afternoon?"

"Oh, yes, gratefully. "

Mrs. Ashleigh held out her hand as I made towards the door. 

Is there a physician who has not felt at times how that ceremonious feethrows him back from the garden-land of humanity into the market-place ofmoney, --seems to put him out of the pale of equal friendship, and say, "True, you have given health and life. Adieu! there, you are paid forit!" With a poor person there would have been no dilemma, but Mrs. Ashleigh was affluent: to depart from custom here was almost impertinence. But had the penalty of my refusal been the doom of never again beholdingLilian, I could not have taken her mother's gold. So I did not appear tonotice the hand held out to me, and passed by with a quickened step. 

"But, Dr. Fenwick, stop!"

"No, ma'am, no! Miss Ashleigh would have recovered as soon without me. Whenever my aid is really wanted, then--but Heaven grant that time maynever come! We will talk again about her to-morrow. "

I was gone, --now in the garden ground, odorous with blossoms; now inthe lane, inclosed by the narrow walls; now in the deserted streets, overwhich the moon shone full as in that winter night when I hurried from thechamber of death. But the streets were not ghastly now, and the moon wasno longer Hecate, that dreary goddess of awe and spectres, but the sweet, simple Lady of the Stars, on whose gentle face lovers have gazed eversince (if that guess of astronomers be true) she was parted from earth torule the tides of its deeps from afar, even as love, from love divided, rules the heart that yearns towards it with mysterious law. 

CHAPTER XI. 

With what increased benignity I listened to the patients who visited methe next morning! The whole human race seemed to be worthier of love, andI longed to diffuse amongst all some rays of the glorious hope that haddawned upon my heart. My first call, when I went forth, was on the pooryoung woman from whom I had been returning the day before, when animpulse, which seemed like a fate, had lured me into the grounds where Ihad first seen Lilian. I felt grateful to this poor patient; without herLilian herself might be yet unknown to rue. 

The girl's brother, a young man employed in the police, and whose paysupported a widowed mother and the suffering sister, received me at thethreshold of the cottage. 

"Oh, sir, she is so much better to-day; almost free from pain. Willshe live now; can she live?"

"If my treatment has really done the good you say; if she be reallybetter under it, I think her recovery may be pronounced. But I must firstsee her. "

The girl was indeed wonderfully better. I felt that my skill wasachieving a signal triumph; but that day even my intellectual pride wasforgotten in the luxurious unfolding of that sense of heart which had sonewly waked into blossom. 

As I recrossed the threshold, I smiled on the brother, who was stilllingering there, --

"Your sister is saved, Wady. She needs now chiefly wine, and goodthough light nourishment; these you will find at my house; call there forthem every day. "

"God bless you, sir! If ever I can serve you--" His tongue faltered, he could say no more. 

Serve me, Allen Fenwick--that poor policeman! Me, whom a king could notserve! What did I ask from earth but Fame and Lilian's heart? Thronesand bread man wins from the aid of others; fame and woman's heart he canonly gain through himself. 

So I strode gayly up the hill, through the iron gates, into the fairyground, and stood before Lilian's home. 

The man-servant, on opening the door, seemed somewhat confused, andsaid hastily before I spoke, --

"Not at home, sir; a note for you. "

I turned the note mechanically in my hand; I felt stunned. 

"Not at home! Miss Ashleigh cannot be out. How is she?"

"Better, sir, thank you. "

I still could not open the note; my eyes turned wistfully towards thewindows of the house, and there--at the drawing-room window--I encounteredthe scowl of Mr. Vigors. I coloured with resentment, divined that I wasdismissed, and walked away with a proud crest and a firm step. 

When I was out of the gates, in the blind lane, I opened the note. Itbegan formally. "Mrs. Ashleigh presents her compliments, " and went on tothank me, civilly enough, for my attendance the night before, would notgive me the trouble to repeat my visit, and inclosed a fee, double theamount of the fee prescribed by custom. I flung the money, as an asp thathad stung me, over the high wall, and tore the note into shreds. Havingthus idly vented my rage, a dull gnawing sorrow came heavily down upon allother emotions, stifling and replacing them. At the mouth of the lane Ihalted. I shrank from the thought of the crowded streets beyond; I shrankyet more from the routine of duties, which stretched before me in thedesert into which daily life was so suddenly smitten. I sat down by theroadside, shading my dejected face with a nervous hand. I looked up asthe sound of steps reached my ear, and saw Dr. Jones coming briskly alongthe lane, evidently from Abbots' House. He must have been there at thevery time I had called. I was not only dismissed but supplanted. I rosebefore he reached the spot on which I had seated myself, and went my wayinto the town, went through my allotted round of professional visits; butmy attentions were not so tenderly devoted, my kill so genially quickenedby the glow of benevolence, as my poorer patients had found them in themorning. I have said how the physician should enter the sick-room. "ACalm Intelligence!" But if you strike a blow on the heart, the intellectsuffers. Little worth, I suspect, was my "calm intelligence" that day. Bichat, in his famous book upon Life and Death, divides life into twoclasses, --animal and organic. Man's intellect, with the brain for itscentre, belongs to life animal; his passions to life organic, centred inthe heart, in the viscera. Alas! if the noblest passions through whichalone we lift ourselves into the moral realm of the sublime and beautifulreally have their centre in the life which the very vegetable, that livesorganically, shares with us! And, alas! if it be that life which weshare with the vegetable, that can cloud, obstruct, suspend, annul thatlife centred in the brain, which we share with every being howsoeverangelic, in every star howsoever remote, on whom the Creator bestows thefaculty of thought!

CHAPTER XII. 

But suddenly I remembered Mrs. Poyntz. I ought to call on her. So Iclosed my round of visits at her door. The day was then far advanced, andthe servant politely informed me that Mrs. Poyntz was at dinner. I couldonly leave my card, with a message that I would pay my respects to her thenext day. That evening I received from her this note:--

 Dear Dr. Fenwick, --I regret much that I cannot have the pleasure of seeing you to-morrow. Poyntz and I are going to visit his brother, at the other end of the county, and we start early. We shall be away some days. Sorry to hear from Mrs. Ashleigh that she has been persuaded by Mr. Vigors to consult Dr. Jones about Lilian. Vigors and Jones both frighten the poor mother, and insist upon consumptive tendencies. Unluckily, you seem to have said there was little the matter. Some doctors train their practice as some preachers fill their churches, --by adroit use of the appeals to terror. You do not want patients, Dr. Jones does. And, after all, better perhaps as it is. Yours, etc. M. Poyntz. 

To my more selfish grief, anxiety for Lilian was now added. I had seenmany more patients die from being mistreated for consumption than fromconsumption itself. And Dr. Jones was a mercenary, cunning, needy man, with much crafty knowledge of human foibles, but very little skill in thetreatment of human maladies. My fears were soon confirmed. A few daysafter I heard from Miss Brabazon that Miss Ashleigh was seriously ill, kept her room. Mrs. Ashleigh made this excuse for not immediatelyreturning the visits which the Hill had showered upon her. Miss Brabazonhad seen Dr. Jones, who had shaken his head, said it was a serious case;but that time and care (his time and his care!) might effect wonders. 

How stealthily at the dead of the night I would climb the Hill and looktowards the windows of the old sombre house, --one window, in which a lightburned dim and mournful, the light of a sick-room, --of hers!

At length Mrs. Poyntz came back, and I entered her house, having fullyresolved beforehand on the line of policy to be adopted towards thepotentate whom I hoped to secure as an ally. It was clear that neitherdisguise nor half-confidence would baffle the penetration of so keen anintellect, nor propitiate the good will of so imperious and resolute atemper. Perfect frankness here was the wisest prudence; and after all, itwas most agreeable to my own nature, and most worthy of my own honour. 

Luckily, I found Mrs. Poyntz alone, and taking in both mine the handshe somewhat coldly extended to me, I said, with the earnestness ofsuppressed emotion, --

"You observed when I last saw you, that I had not yet asked you to bemy friend. I ask it now. Listen to me with all the indulgence you canvouchsafe, and let me at least profit by your counsel if you refuse togive me your aid. "

Rapidly, briefly, I went on to say how I had first seen Lilian, andhow sudden, how strange to myself, had been the impression which thatfirst sight of her had produced. 

"You remarked the change that had come over me, " said I; "youdivined the cause before I divined it myself, --divined it as I sat therebeside you, thinking that through you I might see, in the freedom ofsocial intercourse, the face that was then haunting me. You know what hassince passed. Miss Ashleigh is ill; her case is, I am convinced, whollymisunderstood. All other feelings are merged in one sense of anxiety, --ofalarm. But it has become due to me, due to all, to incur the risk of yourridicule even more than of your reproof, by stating to you thus candidly, plainly, bluntly, the sentiment which renders alarm so poignant, andwhich, if scarcely admissible to the romance of some wild dreamy boy, mayseem an unpardonable folly in a man of my years and my sober calling, --dueto me, to you, to Mrs. Ashleigh, because still the dearest thing in lifeto me is honour. And if you, who know Mrs. Ashleigh so intimately, whomust be more or less aware of her plans or wishes for her daughter'sfuture, --if you believe that those plans or wishes lead to a lot far moreambitious than an alliance with me could offer to Miss Ashleigh, then aidMr. Vigors in excluding me from the house; aid me in suppressing apresumptuous, visionary passion. I cannot enter that house without loveand hope at my heart; and the threshold of that house I must not cross ifsuch love and such hope would be a sin and a treachery in the eyes of itsowner. I might restore Miss Ashleigh to health; her gratitude might--Icannot continue. This danger must not be to me nor to her, if her motherhas views far above such a son-in-law. And I am the more bound toconsider all this while it is yet time, because I heard you state thatMiss Ashleigh had a fortune, was what would be here termed an heiress. And the full consciousness that whatever fame one in my profession maylive to acquire, does not open those vistas of social power and grandeurwhich are opened by professions to my eyes less noble in themselves, --thatfull consciousness, I say, was forced upon me by certain words of yourown. For the rest, you know my descent is sufficiently recognized as thatamidst well-born gentry to have rendered me no mesalliance to families themost proud of their ancestry, if I had kept my hereditary estate andavoided the career that makes me useful to man. But I acknowledge that onentering a profession such as mine--entering any profession except that ofarms or the senate--all leave their pedigree at its door, an erased ordead letter. All must come as equals, high-born or low-born, into thatarena in which men ask aid from a man as he makes himself; to them hisdead forefathers are idle dust. Therefore, to the advantage of birth Icease to have a claim. I am but a provincial physician, whose stationwould be the same had he been a cobbler's son. But gold retains its grandprivilege in all ranks. He who has gold is removed from the suspicionthat attaches to the greedy fortune-hunter. My private fortune, swelledby my savings, is sufficient to secure to any one I married a largersettlement than many a wealthy squire can make. I need no fortune with awife; if she have one, it would be settled on herself. Pardon thesevulgar details. Now, have I made myself understood?"

"Fully, " answered the Queen of the Hill, who had listened to mequietly, watchfully, and without one interruption, "fully; and you havedone well to confide in me with so generous an unreserve. But before Isay further, let me ask, what would be your advice for Lilian, supposingthat you ought not to attend her? You have no trust in Dr. Jones; neitherhave I. And Annie Ashleigh's note received to-day, begging me to call, justifies your alarm. Still you think there is no tendency toconsumption?"

"Of that I am certain so far as my slight glimpse of a case thatto me, however, seems a simple and not uncommon one, will permit. But inthe alternative you put--that my own skill, whatever its worth, isforbidden--my earnest advice is that Mrs. Ashleigh should take herdaughter at once to London, and consult there those great authorities towhom I cannot compare my own opinion or experience; and by their counselabide. "

Mrs. Poyntz shaded her eyes with her hand for a few moments, and seemedin deliberation with herself. Then she said, with her peculiar smile, half grave, half ironical, --

"In matters more ordinary you would have won me to your side long ago. That Mr. Vigors should have presumed to cancel my recommendation to asettler on the Hill was an act of rebellion, and involved the honour of myprerogative; but I suppressed my indignation at an affront so unusual, partly out of pique against yourself, but much more, I think, out ofregard for you. "

"I understand. You detected the secret of my heart; you knew that Mrs. Ashleigh would not wish to see her daughter the wife of a provincialphysician. "

"Am I sure, or are you sure, that the daughter herself would acceptthat fate; or if she accepted it, would not repent?"

"Do you not think me the vainest of men when I say this, --that I cannotbelieve I should be so enthralled by a feeling at war with my reason, unfavoured by anything I can detect in my habits of mind, or even by thedreams of a youth which exalted science and excluded love, unless I wasintimately convinced that Miss Ashleigh's heart was free, that I couldwin, and that I could keep it! Ask me why I am convinced of this, and Ican tell you no more why I think that she could love me than I can tellyou why I love her!"

"I am of the world, worldly; but I am a woman, womanly, --though I maynot care to be thought it. And, therefore, though what you say is, regarded in a worldly point of view, sheer nonsense, regarded in a womanlypoint of view, it is logically sound. But still you cannot know Lilian asI do. Your nature and hers are in strong contrast. I do not think sheis a safe wife for you. The purest, the most innocent creatureimaginable, certainly that, but always in the seventh heaven; and you inthe seventh heaven just at this moment, but with an irresistiblegravitation to the solid earth, which will have its way again when thehoneymoon is over--I do not believe you two would harmonize byintercourse. I do not believe Lilian would sympathize with you, and I amsure you could not sympathize with her throughout the long dull course ofthis workday life. And, therefore, for your sake, as well as hers, I wasnot displeased to find that Dr. Jones had replaced you; and now, in returnfor your frankness, I say frankly, do not go again to that house. Conquerthis sentiment, fancy, passion, whatever it be. And I will advise Mrs. Ashleigh to take Lilian to town. Shall it be so settled?"

I could not speak. I buried my face in my hands-misery, misery, desolation!

I know not how long I remained thus silent, perhaps many minutes. Atlength I felt a cold, firm, but not ungentle hand placed upon mine; and aclear, full, but not discouraging voice said to me, --

"Leave me to think well over this conversation, and to ponder well thevalue of all you have shown that you so deeply feel. The interests oflife do not fill both scales of the balance. The heart, which does notalways go in the same scale with the interests, still has its weight inthe scale opposed to them. I have heard a few wise men say, as many asilly woman says, 'Better be unhappy with one we love, than be happy withone we love not. ' Do you say that too?"

"With every thought of my brain, every beat of my pulse, I say it. "

"After that answer, all my questionings cease. You shall hear from meto-morrow. By that time, I shall have seen Annie and Lilian. I shallhave weighed both scales of the balance, --and the heart here, AllenFenwick, seems very heavy. Go, now. I hear feet on the stairs, Poyntzbringing up some friendly gossiper; gossipers are spies. "

I passed my hand over my eyes, tearless, but how tears would haverelieved the anguish that burdened them! and, without a word, went downthe stairs, meeting at the landing-place Colonel Poyntz and the old manwhose pain my prescription had cured. The old man was whistling a merrytune, perhaps first learned on the playground. He broke from it to thank, almost to embrace me, as I slid by him. I seized his jocund blessing as agood omen, and carried it with me as I passed into the broad sunlight. Solitary--solitary! Should I be so evermore?