University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

Before the return of James Lenox
with the physician, Mr. Redwood had
made an arrangement with Mr. Lenox,
who consented to consider the strangers
as boarders while Mr. Redwood's accident
should detain him at the place we
shall call Eton. Some little bustle in
the entry announced the arrival of the
physician, and he entered the apartment
followed by Caroline, who with
more alarm than she had testified before,
advanced hastily to her father, and said
in a tone which, though a little depressed,

was still overheard by all the by-standers—“My
dear father, you surely will
not suffer yourself to be murdered by a
country doctor; pray, pray, remember
poor Rose.”

“Your grand mother' slap-dog? do not
be a simpleton, Caroline.”

“I do not see,” replied Caroline,
still in a tone of eager expostulation,
“how Rose, being a dog, alters the case.
I am sure grandmamma thought as much
of her as of any friend she had in the
world. May not,” she added, turning
to the physician, “may not my father
wait till a surgeon can be obtained from
Boston or New York?”

“Undoubtedly he may,” replied the
doctor, smiling.

“And without danger?” inquired
Mr. Redwood, who seemed to have become
infected with his daughter's apprehensions.

“Possibly without danger,” replied

the physician, “though I should apprehend
not without great additional suffering.”

“Better to suffer than to die,” urged
Caroline.

“I trust your father is not reduced
to that alternative,” replied the physician.
“Such accidents are inconvenient,
but seldom fatal. Shall I, Sir,” he
added, turning to Mr. Redwood, “proceed
to the examination of your arm?”

The modest demeanour and manly
promptness of the doctor inspired his
patient with confidence; and ashamed
of having for a moment yielded to the
weakness of his daughter, he said, “proceed,
Sir, certainly. Forgive my daughter's
scruples—she is alarmed and inexperienced.”

“She is a dumb fool,” muttered
Debby; and laying her arm on Caroline's,
with a force to compel obedience,
she pushed her out of the room,
and then with an absolute command,

dispersing all but those whose assistance
was required, she prepared to obey the
orders of docter Bristol, to whom she
evidently deferred as to a master operator.
The physician in his turn treated her
as a confidential agent; and so quietly,
skilfully, and expeditiously did he perform
the operation, that he fully substantiated
in the judgment of his
grateful patient, all the praise that had
been lavished on him. Mr. Redwood
bore the operation with stoical firmness,
but after it was over his strength seemed
much exhausted.

His physician ordered that he should
be kept perfectly quiet, and that no one
should have access to the room but those
whose services were necessary. He inquired
of Mr. Redwood if he preferred
that his daughter should stay with him.
Mr. Redwood sighing deeply, replied,
that his daughter was too much unaccustomed
to scenes of this kind to be of
any use to him; and the physician proceeded

to make arrangements with Mrs.
Lenox and Deborah. The result of their
deliberations was, that Deborah should
keep this night's vigil at the bed of the
sick man.

These important arrangements being
made, doctor Bristol undertook to inform
Miss Redwood of her father's
amended condition. She received the
intelligence with less animation than
might have been reasonably anticipated
from the apprehensions she had expressed.
“She was glad,” she said, “it
was all over, for she was tired to death
and wished to go to her room.”

“Yes,” said her officious domestic,
“you are tired, Miss Cary, you look
very sick, as pale as a ghost.”

“Oh Lilly,” exclaimed Caroline,
“that is impossible, for I never lose my
colour, you know;” and she ran briskly
to a looking-glass, which, shrouded in
gauze, and bedecked with festoons of
ground-pine adorned Mrs. Lenox's neat

parlour. The mirror was imperfect,
and it sent back as distorted a resemblance
of the disappointed beauty, as if
spleen and envy had reflected the image.
“Oh Lord! Lord!” she exclaimed, “it
would be the death of me to see myself
again in that odious glass.”

“I hope not,” said doctor Bristol.
“We have specifics for such diseases in
this retirement, where there are few to
admire, and none to flatter.”

“Are all your specifics, caustics,
doctor?”

“Oh, no!” replied the doctor, smiling
very pleasantly, (for it cannot be denied
that his instinctive indignation at Miss
Redwood's insensibility was softened
by her matchless beauty;) “no, we
prescribe caustics for inveterate diseases
only: for the young and susceptible
we have gentler remedies.”

“And your cure for vanity is—”

“Abstinence—or, a low diet often
subdues the violence of the symptoms—

the disease is of the chronic order, seldom
cured. But do not imagine that I
have the presumption to prescribe for
you, Miss Redwood, ignorant as I am
even of the existence of the malady.”

“Your prescription, Sir, would at any
rate be quite superfluous,” replied Caroline,
arranging while she spoke, with
evident satisfaction, her dark glossy
curls before the mirror of her dressing-case,
which Lilly (with the true instinct
of a lady's maid,) had placed before her
mistress; “vanity will die of starvation
in this solitude.”

“Oh my dear young lady, you are
ignorant of the disease,” rejoined the
doctor; “there is no element in which
it cannot live, and thrive, and find food
convenient for it. I am not much skilled
in the history of classic gentry; but
if I remember right, it was not the
flatteries of a court or a multitude that
cost poor Narcissus his life, but a rustic
truth-telling woodland stream: depend

on it, Miss Redwood, the danger is
within; and `inward diseases,' as my
friend Debby calls them, are apt to
baffle the most skilful.”

“That being so, Sir,” retorted Miss
Redwood, “it may be well to reserve
your skill for obvious diseases and real
dangers.” She then proceeded to inquire
with considerable interest, into the
particulars of her father's injury; and
concluded by asking how long they
should be detained at Eton.

“It is impossible to say,” replied the
doctor; “five or six weeks, perhaps
longer. Your father's recovery must
depend somewhat on his previous health
and stock of spirits.”

“Oh, then it is a desperate case, for
he has been on the verge of consumption
for these two years; and as to his
spirits, heaven only knows when he had
any. He has been as dull as death ever
since I remember him.”

“Very unfavourable,” replied the

doctor, shaking his head; “but a
parent's melancholy must be obstinate
indeed to resist the cheering efforts of a
child; and I trust, Miss Redwood, your
resolution and patience will be equal to
the present demand on them.”

“It is a demand I cannot answer, Sir.
I might as well call spirits from the
vasty deep, as summon mine at pleasure.
Grandmamma always said cheerfulness
was a virtue that belonged to
common people—quite necessary for
them. I am never melancholy, however.
Melancholy only suits the old
and unfortunate; and if I must remain
here, I will try not to hang myself.”

“A virtuous resolution, truly.”

“Doctor,” exclaimed Caroline, after
a few moments pause, “is there nothing
going on here; nothing to keep one
alive?”

“Yes,” replied the doctor, drily,
“from this very house there is to be a
funeral to-morrow.”

“Quite a diverting circumstance,”
rejoined Caroline. “Pray, Sir, who is
it that is to be buried? No one of any
consequence of course.”

“Goodness is the only consequence
that we acknowledge,” replied the doctor,
gravely; “and our young friend's
escutcheon has no blot upon it.”

Caroline seemed mortified, and did
not pursue her inquiries, and the physician
took his leave after having repeated
his orders that the invalid should
be kept as quiet as possible till his return
in the morning.

Miss Redwood was shown into a
small but very neat apartment, in which
were two beds; one of them had just
been arranged for her accommodation.
“This bed is for me, is it?” she enquired
turning to a little girl who was her conductor,
and at the same moment negligently
throwing down her hat on a
neatly spread quilt, as white as snow.

`,Yes, miss, that is yours,” replied
the child.

“And the other is my servant's?”

“Oh no, miss, that is Ellen's!”

“Well, you little thing, what is
your name?”

“Lucy,” replied the child, dropping
a courtesy.

“Well, Lucy, ask your mother to order
a bed to be made for my servant here.”

“I can ask her,” replied the child;
“but,” she added in a lower tone as she
was leaving the room, “I guess she
won't find it convenient to put that
black girl into Ellen's room.”

Lucy, however, notwithstanding her
prediction, returned in a few moments
to say that Miss Redwood's request was
granted; “and you may thank Ellen
for it,” she added, “for mother would
not hear to it till Ellen begged her.”
“Well, well, child, you may go now—
it is all very well. I shall take care to
compensate your mother, and this Ellen

too, for any favours they may grant me.
Lilly,” she added, turning to her servant
“undress me, and make over that bed,
it is not likely these people know how to
make a bed. Pin down the undersheet
all around as grandmamma has hers; I
feel fidgetty to-night, and a wrinkle
would disturb me—heigho! how long is
it since we left Montreal, Lilly?”

“Two days, Miss Cary.”

“Two days! what an age it seems:
two days since I parted from the divine
Fitzgerald, and it will be twice that number
of weeks before I see another civilized
being. That old jade that told my fortune,
coming down the lake, was not so
much out when she said I should meet
with losses and crosses; but who could
have dreamed of such a cross as this?
And then to think that the Crayton's
will get to Boston before us; and Maria
will contrive to show off her French
dresses first. Oh, it is too provoking!
For heaven's sake, Lilly, stow away my

trunk out of my sight, it will make me
wretched to see those beautiful dresses,
of Le Moine's all lying idle, getting
yellow, and old-fashioned.” Thus Miss
Redwood continued to run on, half to
her servant and half to herself, till she
lost in sleep the consciousness of her disappointments.