"Please don't give me anything, Doctor Eaton; believe me, I shall do better without."
"And then we shall have you sick on our hands, Abraham and I. What should we do with you?"
"I'll try not to trouble you," she said,"but I would rather you left me to myself to-night"; but even as she spoke, a quick convulsion of muscles about her face told of pain.
Doctor Eaton had not seen me, for I stood in the shadow of the bed behind him.
"Who will stay with your sister tonight?" he asked Mr. Axtell.
Mr. Axtell looked around at me, as if expecting that I would answer; and I presented myself for the office.
"You look scarcely fit," was the village-physician's somewhat ungracious comment; and his eyes said, what his lips dared not,"Who are you?"
"I think you'll find me so, if you try me."
Miss Axtell had gone away again, and neither saw nor heeded me.
"Will you come below?"and the doctor looked at me as he went out.
I followed him. In the library he shut the door, sat down near the table, took from his pocket a small phial containing a light brown powder, and, dividing a piece of paper into the minute scraps needful, made a deposit in each from the phial, and then, folding over the bits of paper, handed them to me.
"Are you accustomed to take care of sick persons?" he asked.
"Not much; but I am a physician's daughter. I have a little experience."
"Are you a visitor here?"
"No,at the parsonage."
A pair of quick gray eyes danced out at me from under browy cliffs clothed with a ledge of lashes, in an actually startling manner. I didn't think the man had so much of life in him.
"You're Mrs. Wilton's sister, perhaps."
"I am."
"Give her one of these every half-hour, till she falls asleep."
"Yes, Sir."
"Don't let her talk; but she won't, though. If she gets incoherent,says wild things,talks of what you can't understand,send for me; I live next door."
"Is this all for her?"
"Enough. Do you know her?"
"I never saw her until to-night."
"The brother? Monstrous fellow."
"Until to-day."
"Look up there."
"Where?"
"On the wall."
"At what?"
There were several paintings hanging there.
"The face, of course."
"I can't see it very well."
Shadows were upon it, and the lampshade was on.
"Then I'll take this off"; and Doctor Eaton removed the shade, letting the light up to the wall.
"A young girl's face," I said.
The doctor was looking at me, and not at the painting there. A little bit of confusion came,I don't know why.
"Do you like it?" I ventured.
"I like it? I'm not the one to like it."
"Somebody does, then?"
"Of course. What did he paint it for, if he didn't like it?"
"I do not know of whom you are talking, at all," I said, a little vexed at this information-no-information style.
"You don't?" in a voice of the utmost astonishment.
"No. Is this all, for the sick lady? I think I ought to go to her."
"Of course you ought. It's a sad thing, this death in the house"; and Doctor Eaton picked up his hat, and opened the door.
Kate was waiting in the hall.
"Mr. Abraham thinks you'd better look in and see if it's well to have any watchers in there, before you go," she said.
"Well, light me in, then, Katie. You wait in there, if you please, Miss," to me; and I saw the two go to the front-room on the right.
A waft of something, it may have been the air that came out of that room, sent me back from the hall, and I shut the door behind me. It was several minutes before they came back. In the interim I had taken a long look at the face on the wall. It seemed too young to be very beautiful, and I couldn't help wishing that the artist had waited a year or two, until a little more of the outline of life had come to it; yet it was a sweet, loving face, with a brow as low and cool as Sophie's own, only it hadn't any shadow of an Aaron on it. I didn't hear the door open, I hadn't heard the sound of living thing, when some one said, close to me, as I was standing looking up at the face I've spoken of,
"What are you doing?"
It was Mr. Axtell, and the voice was a prickly one.
"Is there any harm?" I said. "I'm only looking here,"pointing to where my eyes had been before. "Who painted it?"
"An unknown, poor painter."
"Was he poor in spirit?"
"He is now, I trust."
A man that has variant voices is a cruel thing in this world, because one cannot help their coming in at some one of the gates of the heart, which cannot all be guarded at the same moment. "Poor in spirit?" "He is now, I trust." I felt decidedly vexed at this man before me for having such tones in his voice.
"Can I go up to Miss Axtell now?" I asked.
"In a moment, when Kate has shown Doctor Eaton out."
I picked up my powders and my illustrious book, and waited.
Kate came.
"The doctor says there's no need," she said, in her laconic way.
Kate, I afterwards learned, was the daughter of the farmer that Sophie heard Miss Axtell consoling for the loss of his wife, one day.
MY DAPHNEMy budding Daphne wanted scope
To bourgeon all her flowers of hope.
She felt a cramp around her root
That crippled every outmost shoot.
I set me to the kindly task;
I found a trim and tidy cask,
Shapely and painted; straightway seized
The timely waif; and, quick released
From earthen bound and sordid thrall,
My Daphne sat there, proud and tall.
Stately and tall, like any queen,
She spread her farthingale of green;
Nor stinted aught with larger fate,
For that she was innately great.
I learned, in accidental way,
A secret, on an after-day,
A chance that marked the simple change
As something ominous and strange.
And so, therefrom, with anxious care,
Almost with underthought of prayer,
As, day by day, my listening soul
Waited to catch the coming roll
Of pealing victory, that should bear
My country's triumph on the air,
I tended gently all the more
The plant whose life a portent bore.
The weary winter wore away,
And still we waited, day by day;
And still, in full and leafy pride,
My Daphne strengthened at my side,
Till her fair buds outburst their bars,
And whitened gloriously to stars!
Above each stalwart, loyal stem
Rested their heavenly diadem,
And flooded forth their incense rare,
A breathing Joy, upon the air!
Well might my backward thought recall
The cramp, the hindrance, and the thrall,
The strange release to larger space,
The issue into growth and grace,
And joyous hail the homely sign
That so had spelled a hope divine!
For all this life, and light, and bloom,
This breath of Peace that blessed the room,
Was born from out the banded rim,
Once crowded close, and black, and grim,
With grains that feed the Cannon's breath,
And boom his sentences of death!
CONCERNING DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE
"On the whole, it was very disagreeable," wrote a certain great traveller and hunter, summing up an account of his position, as he composed himself to rest upon a certain evening after a hard day's work. And no doubt it must have been very disagreeable. The night was cold and dark; and the intrepid traveller had to lie down to sleep in the open air, without even a tree to shelter him. A heavy shower of hail was falling,each hailstone about the size of an egg. The dark air was occasionally illuminated by forked lightning, of the most appalling aspect; and the thunder was deafening. By various sounds, heard in the intervals of the peals, it seemed evident that the vicinity was pervaded by wolves, tigers, elephants, wild-boars, and serpents. A peculiar motion, perceptible under horse-cloth which was wrapped up to serve as a pillow, appeared to indicate that a snake was wriggling about underneath it. The hunter had some ground for thinking that it was a very venomous one, as indeed in the morning it proved to be; but he was too tired to look. And speaking of the general condition of matters upon that evening, the hunter stated, with great mildness of language, that "it was very disagreeable."