University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

It was a blustering December day,—no snow to lay the dust
or to allay the cold with its bright reflections; and Winter
himself seemed shivering, despoiled of his ermine cloak.

In that very spirit in which some people seek out the
worst side of human nature, the wind careered about,—
picked up all the dust and straws it could find, and showered
them upon the heads of innocent and well dressed people.
Not exclusively, to be sure,—the wind was impartial in its
bestowings; but if mischief may be measured by the trouble
it gives and the effects it leaves behind it, then did “the
upper ten” get more than their share that day. It mattered
little to the chimney-sweeps that their caps were stuck with
dry leaves, and their brown blankets flung about in every
fantastical way— à la Don and à la Boreas,—the carters had
no veils to blow off; and if now and then a rowdy's hat
flew into the middle of the street, nobody pitied him and

the hat was none the worse. But the ladies who fought
the wind at every corner, and came upon an ambush of
full grown zephyrs in most unexpected places, found the
enemy's reinforcements to be far beyond their own; while
hair was frizzed after every fashion not approved; the
colour of dark hats became doubtful; and if white ones ever
looked white again, it was only because in town one takes a
medium standard of purity.

In the midst of it all the sky was sometimes quite clear,
and in the sunshine the driver of some incoming stage loomed
out from his high station, and hackney-coachmen became
visible. Then with the next gust the clouds rushed on, as
white and almost as light as snowflakes,—drifting, meeting,
covering the blue, and causing an instant fall in the thermometer.

Through the throng of men and things a gig made its
way, unmolested but not unheeded. Everybody looks at a
doctor's gig, though everybody has seen one every day of his
life,—everybody looks and wonders with a strange sort of interest.
And there is always the same thing to be seen. On
the one seat a remarkably comfortable-looking gentleman, in
his multitude of greatcoats and wrappers (no doctor ever
looked anything but comfortable); while the other seat contains
with great ease a comparatively thin individual, hardly
a sketch of the doctor, and usually habited in a cap, mittens,
and a red worsted comforter. He enjoys moreover a
share of the boot.

And it is no wonder that everybody looks; for there is a
strange meeting of life and death in the air of that gig—its
errand and itself so widely different!

The house towards which this one went had been already
visited by the wind many times in the course of the day;
and there it had demanded admittance as noisily as at any

other house in the whole street. But of late the wind had
grown respectful; and though just at the time when the
doctor drove up Broadway it made one desperate dash at
the third story windows, piling dry leaves and dust on every
sash,—something it saw there seemed to calm its mood;—
the wind not only went down sighing, but took the dry leaves
with it.