University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

The eminent physician who had just left the bed
of Mr. Romain was one of the most skilful and
highly esteemed. His noble and gentlemanly appearance;

his bland and soothing manner; his sterling
sense; his profound knowledge upon general
subjects, as well as on his own dignified profession;
his ever cheerful spirits, and excellent heart, rendered
him a delightful companion even when a
necessary one. Happily married to a woman with
a large fortune, independent of his own ample income,
a family of sons and daughters were growing
up in usefulness and happiness about him; and
his broad forehead was just sufficiently touched with
silver to make him the more appropriate adviser
for those of the fair sex whose fastidiousness, or
whose delicacy, might less frankly receive the assiduity
and advice of younger men. How many
essentials are there, besides professional skill, to the
complete character of a great physician! His very
manners and appearance had in them something
soothing; something that hushed alarm, quieted
nervous apprehensions, restored hope and confidence,
and made the morbid and the cowardly
ashamed of their terrors. Prompt to the call of
pain, he was ever punctually ready—toiling more
for humanity than reward—dispelling, like a good
spirit, torment and danger, and guarding from agony
and death. As life is the essence and foundation
of all other blessings, so he who preserves it exercises
a most elevated and noble office; and if his
duties bring him often into the midst of wo and
mourning—if he is daily compelled to behold the
soul and body separate (for the time must come
to all when no earthly aid can save)—what a cheering
and supporting offset does he possess in the reflection,
that many walk the blessed earth, behold
the sky and sweet nature, and bless friends and relations
with their presence, whom his hand has rescued
from the yawning grave. Oh, what joy! what
divine power! to come the saviour of a terrified
and weeping circle; to raise up the half-lost form
of some sweet child or lovely girl; to give back to
life the father, the wife, the son; to say unto the
dying, who are already mourned as dead, “Arise,
and walk.”

Doctor Melbourne had known Leslie, and admired
him sincerely. With the rest of the world,
he had been sometimes staggered by the weight
of evidence brought against him, not only at the
trial, but subsequently through the medium of
the public journals. A good citizen, however, as
well as a benevolent man, he willingly waived his
own opinion in favour of the verdict, and resolved
to believe and to advocate the innocence of the
unfortunate victim of general persecution.

We must remark here, that in no quarter of the
globe are the laws more purely and properly administered
than in the United States. The decisions
are probably as equitable as it is in the nature
of human laws to be. In no country, too, are they
regarded with more universal reverence and confiding
submission. If injustice occurs, it appears in
those fantastic combinations of accidental circumstances—exceptions
in the usual order of society
—which the broad and immutable course of a
general law cannot be turned aside to correct; but
the law itself is acknowledged to be, as far as
mortal institutions may be, broadly and beneficially
adapted—without being warped by barbarous ages,
or distorted into uncouth shapes to suit present
individual interests—wisely and impartially to the
whole body of the people. No currents flow to
favour particular persons or classes. The mass
of the people, however, in all ages, and under
every form of government, contain materials,
or classes, liable to be inflamed by accidental
causes; and the majesty of mankind, or rather

their strength and power, exhibit themselves at
times independent of law—examining how far the
bonds they have consented to wear continue to be
adapted to the public good. These outbreaks and
excitements are inherent to the state of earthly
things. The healthiest individual has moments
of depression, illness, and pain; the gentlest, the
most disciplined, are sometimes agitated with passion
or affected with anguish. Climes of heavenly
purity are awakened by the thunder, the volcano,
and the earthquake;—and no government will be
invented to exclude from the ever-floating and
heaving world of human feeling those turbulent
ebbs and flows, those fiery out-bursts, which, amid
universal beauty and order, carry wreck and terror
through the realms of nature herself.

Doctor Melbourne drove from the dwelling of
Mr. Romain to another and yet more elegant mansion.
Had his visit not been a sufficient sign,
other indications betrayed, even to the careless
observer, the presence of sickness in the house of
Mr. Temple, once so adorned with gayety and beauty,
and so bright with the midnight revel. The
knocker was muffled—the bell was tied—the window-shutters
closed—and the pavement before the
door thickly bedded with the soft bark of the tanner,
over which the wheels of every passing carriage
rolled inaudibly.

The doctor found the family abandoned to dark
forebodings—perhaps more painful than excited
anguish. The illness and apparently approaching
death of Flora were a fearful and a frightful lesson
to remind them that they belonged to earth, and
were linked, in the midst of their blessings, with
the lowest and vilest, to wretchedness and danger.
Bitter was the pang of each passing hour that
stole the hue from the cheek, and the graceful

roundness from the form, of that lovely, lovely girl
—that softened and etherealized her gay sweet
spirit with the prospect of the grave. Vainly had
all human means been exhausted. Day by day,
week by week, she grew paler and paler, thinner
and thinner—more feeble, helpless, and hopeless.
They who loved her most no longer questioned
whether she could recover, but how long she could
remain on earth. Mr. Temple started from his
careless pursuit of pleasure, and concentrated all
the energies and anxieties of his soul upon this
single theme. Mrs. Temple's majestic form bent
beneath the affliction and assiduity that preyed upon
her day and night, and her eyes ever bore traces
of bitter tears. The servants wept—the groom
wiped his eyes as he curried his horses—every
messenger whom business, or chance, or friendship
brought to the house of sorrow, trod with apprehension
and awe as he approached the door; and the
whispered inquiry, given with half-held breath and
beating heart, was ever the prelude to, “Oh, fading,
fading fast away! Oh, worse—much, much
worse!”

Poor Flora!—every one remembered the bright
and blooming girl. Whose cheek so radiant?
whose eye so full of joy and kindness? Her voice
and step filled the house with cheerfulness. Her
presence shed a light and a peace even upon the
poor and the unhappy. There was not a beggar,
a decrepit old woman in the neighbourhood, whose
ear had not leaned to hear that sweet voice—whose
heart had not beat with quicker pleasure at the
approach of that light step. Old John, the wood-sawyer—a
rough and ragged wretch, whose heart
had stood the storms of seventy years—came every
morning to the door, asked after his young mistress,
and turned away with the great tears rolling

down his cheeks like rain. Poor, poor Flora:
Every heart trembled for her.

Some there were, however—envious, perhaps,
of the prosperity of the Temples, or offended at
their display—who did not hesitate, with that exquisite
cruelty and malice—a very snare of Satan
—which people of the most ostentatious piety
sometimes fall into (so blind, so weak is the human
heart), to declare aloud, and with cold indifference,
not totally free from a tincture of gratification, that
“the calamity of their daughter was a judgment
upon the Temples from a revengeful Heaven, for
having wasted their wealth in idle pleasure.”

Amid all this dismal sorrow, Flora was calm and
unsubdued. Her patient and unresisting gentleness
and sweetness yielded without repining, as a
lamb on the altar. Her voice, though faint and
low, was sweeter in its tremulous tones; her manner
had gained a new and indescribable grace and
softness; and over her countenance had stolen a
beauty so touching, so exquisite, so unearthly, that
even those beholders who did not weep stood to
wonder. She spent hours of the day in a large
easy-chair, clothed in a robe of vestal white—her
fragile and beautiful form supported by pillows and
cushions. Sometimes she was assisted in a laborious
walk across the room, and sometimes moved
near the window, and breathed the air which the
now rich autumn blew gently in, loaded with incense.
Her continued cheerfulness, her uncomplaining
and angelic nature, her gentle tenderness to
all about her, every eloquent look, every accidental
word, bound her as with a spell to all hearts, and
was treasured carefully in all memories, to be dwelt
on and repeated when the eyes that shed, the lips
that breathed them, should exist but in the minds
of the survivers. In her gayest and brightest monents,

never had she wielded such a power over
the affections.

It is impossible at any time to look on a thing so
fair, except with extreme interest: but when sickness
descends upon her; when pain racks her
young limbs, even as it does that of a common
brute; when we see the cords of life and happiness
gradually relaxed and falling to pieces; when we
gaze on her patient, sweet face, as something
doomed to pass away prematurely with ordinary
vulgar things, to fall and fade like the leaves and
the flowers: oh, in the bosom that loves, the impressions
of sadness and agony are indeed almost
unendurable.

Mr. and Mrs. Temple received Doctor Melbourne
with speechless wo.

“How is she to-day, my dearest friends?” inquired
he.

Tears were his answer, till Mrs. Temple, sobbing,
replied—

“Weaker, weaker, doctor; and dearer as she
passes away.”

“Oh, doctor,” cried Mr. Temple, “Flora is
already an angel. Day by day she has less of
earth and more of heaven; soon we shall be
utterly alone. I cannot bear it—I cannot bear it!
Oh, Melbourne, save my daughter!”

“Be calm, my good friends. I do not attempt to
console you. I cannot. Only be patient under the
will of the Almighty. My heart bleeds for you. I
can only sympathize with you. May God avert
this calamity from your house.”

He took Mr. Temple's hand, who, in return,
grasped his with convulsive energy; and turning
away his face, the hardness of his breath, the heaving
of his bosom, announced the dire pangs with

which, alone, this deeply-rooted affection could be
wrenched from his heart.

“Come,” said the doctor, kindly and cheerfully,
after a moment of silence, “let us see the dear
girl.”

The mother, with noiseless step, and wiping her
eyes, carefully disentangled the hand of the doctor
from that of her afflicted husband, and led him
gently to the chamber of Flora.

It was a bewildering morning. The sunshine
gleamed delightfully in through the crimson curtains,
the flowers were all blooming in the garden,
and the birds sang merrily beneath the windows.
Flora was seated in her large chair, with a little
stand before her, on which lay a book.

“My daughter,” said Mrs. Temple, “here is
Doctor Melbourne.”

“Ah, dear mother—doctor”—she held out her
faded hand, and with a smile—“what a trouble I
am to you!”

“Come,” said the doctor, with a cheerful, encouraging
air; “we must talk awhile with the
naughty sick girl. How does she do to-day?”

“Naughty, doctor, as you say; I have forgotten
your injunctions, and indulged myself for a few
moments with reading. I think I feel stronger
to-day.”

“We shall send you off somewhere in the country,”
said the doctor; “you are too confined here
in this close, noisy town; and the air is changeable.
We must take her into a kinder climate, into
a more cheerful land. Come, Miss Flora, what
do you say to a soft, delicious clime all the year
round; where oranges and lemons bloom through
the whole winter, and where snow never approaches
nearer the green and flowery vale than the peaked
tops of silver that shine from the clouds; where

the mild sunshine never ceases to warm, and the
bright verdure never passes away? What say you
to a land of such beauty and enchantment? What
say you to Italy?”

“Oh, doctor,” said Flora, with a languid smile, “I
think all my youthful feelings are dead in my bosom.
A few months ago, such a thought would
have kept me wakeful for joy; but now—” a half-audible
sigh escaped her lips.

“Why, my child?” asked the doctor.

“And why, my beloved Flora?” said Mrs. Temple,
kneeling down affectionately, taking her hand
and pressing it to her lips, while the doctor held the
other, and ever and anon felt the pulse.

The pale and feeble girl sighed, but returned no
answer.

“You are doing very well this morning,” said the
doctor. “I have seen a poor man who would like
to own a pulse so strong and regular as this—the
father of that unfortunate Rosalie Romain—Ha!”
he exclaimed, suddenly, and in a changed tone.

“What is the matter?” said Mrs. Temple.

“I was surprised,” replied the doctor, “at the
sudden leaping of the pulse—what! it is quieter
now—so—so. I have been reprimanding Romain's
old nurse for her bitter denunciations of that unhappy
being, poor Norman—Ha! again!” cried
the doctor.

A transient colour passed across the face of Flora,
and she lowered her eyes.

The doctor shook his head. He was a man of
the world, and knew where to read the complaints
of his fellow-creatures elsewhere than in books.
He thought there was more in this than met the
eye.