18. CHAPTER XVIII.
DOCTOR FOSSYL AND HIS THEORIES.
Lucia, as we have said, could not speak for some
moments; but then recovering her voice, sat down, and,
bursting into tears, sobbed:
“Oh, Ellie! how much better you are than I am!”
She cried more than ever as she spoke, and Ellie felt
like crying, too.
Lucia wept on and covered her face, and shook with
emotion.
“Oh, what are you crying for! what makes you cry,
Lucia!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around the
child's neck, “please do not cry!”
“It is because you are so kind,” murmured Lucia,
“you and everybody. Oh, I cannot, cannot take your
dress.
“Indeed, indeed you must, Lucia,” said Ellie, “I do
not want it, and I know you do. I saw you going out
in the cold yesterday evening, and you had no wrapping,
and I thought you would have frozen. Oh, indeed,
indeed, Lucia! it makes me happier to give my dress to
you than to wear it myself; and you will not make me
feel badly by refusing it! It is much too large for me—
I am so small—but it will just fit you with a little off of
the skirt. Dear Lucia! indeed, indeed, I do not
want it!”
And Ellie smoothed the disordered hair of her friend
and leaned her own brown locks against the dark curls
of the child.
Lucia could as yet only sob and utter inarticulate expressions
of thanks: but she soon raised her head, and
looked at Ellie with her sad smile, which, indeed, seemed
to be a peculiarity alike of both the children.
“You are a dear kind girl, Ellie,” she said, “but,
indeed, I cannot take the dress. Ellie, I don't know if
it's pride—maybe a sinful pride—or if it is my love for
you: but nothing could make me take from you the only
warm dress you have. The one you have on is very thin;
and this will be so nice and comfortable. Indeed, I do
not want it, Ellie—I am not—very—cold. Please do
not ask me any more, and don't think hard of me for not
taking it!”
With which words Lucia leaned her head upon Ellie's
shoulder and pressed the hand she held to her lips.
As they sat thus a great artist would have rejoiced to
have seen them, and to have made them beautiful forever
upon canvass. If love and tenderness and goodness filling
every feature—eyes and lips, and brow—make faces
beautiful; then the countenances of Ellie and Lucia were
more fair and lovely than the happiest dreams.
This tenderness and affection was so unmistakeable that
it caused something like a faint tinge of color to enter the
cheek of the sallow individual who, looking through the
crack of the door, witnessed the scene, and heard the conversation
of the children.
Doctor Fossyl had come up stairs with his “shoes of
silence”—a not unusual circumstance with him; and
hearing voices in Lucia's room, had softly approached,
and without ceremony, looked and listened, with the cynical
desire to hear something to support his theory of
human meanness and selfishness. As the struggle between
Lucia and Ellie proceeded, the physician's sneer
had faded, his eye-brows had retreated from each other,
and his yellow cheek had almost turned to comely red.
Surely this man must have had in his heart, when young,
some stuff which had long since been smothered, or trodden
out by his poor cheerless philosophy of scorn, suspicion,
and incredulity in human motives.
The expression of his countenance as he listened, was
not at all such as those who knew him were accustomed to
find in it. An almost tender smile rose to the thin and
bloodless lips, and the eyes, under their shaggy brows,
grew soft and pitiful.
In a moment, however, this expression disappeared,
and his face assumed its habitual coldness. He knocked
rudely at the door and said, with an affectation of having
just reached the spot:
“Who is in this room! what voices are those?”
Ellie rose and went to the door, and curtseyed.
“This is Lucia's room, sir,” she said; “Lucia is my
friend.”
“Your friend! hum! Let us see this Miss Lucia!”
And the surly physician thrust his head in at the door
and scowled at Lucia. She replied to this stare with a
look so soft and humble that the cynic drew back growling.
“Well, very well!” he said, “that's all mighty fine!
Friends! what right have the poor to
friendship. That
is a luxury of the rich, who, as everybody knows, are very
tender and friendly and disinterested! Come, you, madam
—Ellie is your name, I believe—I have no time to lose.
Where's your father?”
“He's my uncle, sir—he's in the room here.”
And Ellie went before the physician, and entered the
apartment of Joe Lacklitter.
Uncle Joe was sitting as usual before the small fire,
with a blanket around his shoulders, and Charley was
painfully struggling with the assistance of a slate and
pencil to arrive at the solution of the problem:—What
would fifty lady-cakes, two for a cent, come to in money?
This sum had been “set” for him by Ellie, and the youthful
brains of Charley were in a state of lamentable confusion
on the subject of the solution. The sight of Doctor
Fossyl did not aid him, and in the terror of the moment
he dashed down an answer which raised the price of lady-cakes
astonishingly in the market.
“How are you to-day, Lacklitter?” said the Doctor,
“as to that young man there who is staring at me with
his mouth open, like a stuck pig, he's always well!”
And Doctor Fossyl scowled at Charley in so terrible
a way, that the young gentleman dropped his slate and
flew for refuge to Ellie's apron.
“Oh, yes, I'm a monster and an ogre,” said the Doctor,
“I feed on children—I eat 'em whole! I'd like to broil
you, sir, and serve you up at breakfast!”
Having thus annihilated Charley, Doctor Fossyl turned
again to uncle Joe and growled.
“I'm obleeged to you, Doctor,” said Joe, “I think I'm
better 'n' better.”
“Why don't you get well?”
“I think I will soon, sir!”
“Soon! Let me see your tongue!”
Joe extended that member.
“Furry and bad,” said Doctor Fossyl, “you're going
entirely too fast. What do you eat?”
“Mighty little, sir—I ain't got any appetite yet—
least-ways—”
“You'd better not have one, or if you do, you'd better
curb it;” said the doctor. “Does this child cook for
you?”
And he pointed to Ellie, who sat quietly in the corner.
“Yes, sir,” Joe said, “she is a good, loving girl, and
we're gittin' on very well. Mr. Sansoucy's very kind, and
the Lord be thanked.”
This speech seemed to anger Doctor Fossyl, and he
growled contemptuously,
“Mr. Sansoucy! a shallow fellow, who knows nothing!
He thinks it mighty fine, I suppose, to be `charitable!'
I suppose, you, Miss,” he added, turning to Ellie, “are
going to fall in love with this fine Seigneur, and set your
cap at him?”
“Sir!” said Ellie, quite bewildered.
“You pretend you don't understand!”
“Understand, sir!”
“Bah! what affectation! How old are you?”
“I'm eleven, sir.”
“It don't attack 'em till they're older,” said the cynic.
Ellie gazed with a puzzled look upon the doctor.
“Very well,” he said, “that's mighty fine—what noise
is that? What terrible sound is that I hear?”
“I think it's Aunt Phillis, holding her prayer meeting,
sir.”
“Her prayer meeting?”
“Yes, sir!”
Doctor Fossyl's sallow countenance grew absolutely
livid with disgust, and he seemed to wish that an earthquake
would swallow the hypocrites whose noise annoyed
him. Nevertheless, no earthquake came, and the hymn
resounded from Aunt Phillis' cellar, louder and louder,
until the old house was filled with it.
“Is that the old woman I went down to see?” the
doctor gasped.
“Yes, sir,” said Ellie.
“She is holding a prayer meeting?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I renounce her,” said Doctor Fossyl, stretching
forth his hand, wrathfully; “she may change her physician.
I'm sick of hypocrisy, and yet this is no worse than that
of your fine Mr. Sansoucy. Bah! how sick it makes me!
What are you staring at the door and listening for, Miss?”
he growled, looking at Ellie.
Ellie did not reply, but, rising, looked more intently at
the door, with a joyous light in her eyes. A step was then
heard, a knock came to the door, and Ellie, running forward,
met upon the threshold, with her sweetest smile, the
gentleman, whose merits were in progress of discussion—
Mr. Sansoucy.
