It was necessary at once to summon a physician to advise as to the
treatment of Myrtle, who had received a shock, bodily and mental, not
lightly to be got rid of, and very probably to be followed by serious
and varied disturbances. Her very tranquillity was suspicious, for there
must be something of exhaustion in it, and the reaction must come sooner
or later.
Old Dr. Lemuel Hurlbut, at the age of ninety-two, very deaf, very nearly
blind, very feeble, liable to odd lapses of memory, was yet a wise
counsellor in doubtful and difficult cases, and on rare occasions was
still called upon to exercise his ancient skill. Here was a case in
which a few words from him might soothe the patient and give confidence
to all who were interested in her. Miss Silence Withers went herself to
see him.
“Miss Withers, father, wants to talk with you about her niece, Miss
Hazard,” said Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut.
“Miss Withers, Miss Withers?--Oh, Silence Withers,--lives up at The
Poplars. How's the Deacon, Miss Withers?” [Ob. 1810.]
“My grandfather is not living, Dr. Hurlbut,” she screamed into his ear.
“Dead, is he? Well, it isn't long since he was with us; and they come
and go,--they come and go. I remember his father, Major Gideon Withers.
He had a great red feather on training-days,--that was what made me
remember him. Who did you say was sick and wanted to see me, Fordyce?”
“Myrtle Hazard, father,--she has had a narrow escape from drowning, and
it has left her in a rather nervous state. They would like to have you
go up to The Poplars and take a look at her. You remember Myrtle Hazard?
She is the great-granddaughter of your old friend the Deacon.”
He had to wait a minute before his thoughts would come to order; with
a little time, the proper answer would be evolved by the slow automatic
movement of the rusted mental machinery.
After the silent moment: “Myrtle Hazard, Myrtle Hazard,--yes, yes, to
be sure! The old Withers stock,--good constitutions,--a little apt to be
nervous, one or two of 'em. I've given 'em a good deal of valerian and
assafoetida,--not quite so much since the new blood came in. There is
n't the change in folks people think,--same thing over and over again.
I've seen six fingers on a child that had a six-fingered great-uncle,
and I've seen that child's grandchild born with six fingers. Does this
girl like to have her own way pretty well, like the rest of the family?”
“A little too well, I suspect, father. You will remember all about her
when you come to see her and talk with her. She would like to talk with
you, and her aunt wants to see you too; they think there's nobody like
the 'old Doctor'.”
He was not too old to be pleased with this preference, and said he was
willing to go when they were ready. With no small labor of preparation
he was at last got to the house, and crept with his son's aid up to the
little room over the water, where his patient was still lying.
There was a little too much color in Myrtle's cheeks and a glistening
lustre in her eyes that told of unnatural excitement. It gave a strange
brilliancy to her beauty, and might have deceived an unpractised
observer. The old man looked at her long and curiously, his imperfect
sight excusing the closeness of his scrutiny.
He laid his trembling hand upon her forehead, and then felt her pulse
with his shriveled fingers. He asked her various questions about
herself, which she answered with a tone not quite so calm as natural,
but willingly and intelligently. They thought she seemed to the old
Doctor to be doing very well, for he spoke cheerfully to her, and
treated her in such a way that neither she nor any of those around her
could be alarmed. The younger physician was disposed to think she was
only suffering from temporary excitement, and that it would soon pass
off.
They left the room to talk it over.
“It does not amount to much, I suppose, father,” said Dr. Fordyce
Hurlbut. “You made the pulse about ninety,--a little hard,--did n't you;
as I did? Rest, and low diet for a day or two, and all will be right,
won't it?”
Was it the feeling of sympathy, or was it the pride of superior
sagacity, that changed the look of the old man's wrinkled features?
“Not so fast,--not so fast, Fordyce,” he said. “I've seen that look on
another face of the same blood,--it 's a great many years ago, and she
was dead before you were born, my boy,--but I've seen that look, and
it meant trouble then, and I'm afraid it means trouble now. I see some
danger of a brain fever. And if she doesn't have that, then look out for
some hysteric fits that will make mischief. Take that handkerchief off
of her head, and cut her hair close, and keep her temples cool, and put
some drawing plasters to the soles of her feet, and give her some of my
pilulae compositae, and follow them with some doses of sal polychrest.
I've been through it all before--in that same house. Live folks are only
dead folks warmed over. I can see 'em all in that girl's face, Handsome
Judith, to begin with. And that queer woman, the Deacon's mother,--there
's where she gets that hystericky look. Yes, and the black-eyed woman
with the Indian blood in her,--look out for that,--look out for that.
And--and--my son, do you remember Major Gideon Withers?” [Ob. 1780.]
“Why no, father, I can't say that I remember the Major; but I know the
picture very well. Does she remind you of him?”
He paused again, until the thoughts came slowly straggling, up to the
point where the question left him. He shook his head solemnly, and
turned his dim eyes on his son's face.
“Four generations--four generations; man and wife,--yes, five
generations, for old Selah Withers took me in his arms when I was a
child, and called me 'little gal,' for I was in girl's clothes,--five
generations before this Hazard child I 've looked on with these old
eyes. And it seems to me that I can see something of almost every one
of 'em in this child's face, it's the forehead of this one, and it's
the eyes of that one, and it's that other's mouth, and the look that
I remember in another, and when she speaks, why, I've heard that same
voice before--yes, yes as long ago as when I was first married; for I
remember Rachel used to think I praised Handsome Judith's voice more
than it deserved,--and her face too, for that matter. You remember
Rachel, my first wife,--don't you, Fordyce?”
“No, father, I don't remember her, but I know her portrait.” (As he was
the son of the old Doctor's second wife, he could hardly be expected to
remember her predecessor.)
The old Doctor's sagacity was not in fault about the somewhat
threatening aspect of Myrtle's condition. His directions were followed
implicitly; for with the exception of the fact of sluggishness rather
than loss of memory, and of that confusion of dates which in slighter
degrees is often felt as early as middle-life, and increases in most
persons from year to year, his mind was still penetrating, and his
advice almost as trustworthy, as in his best days.
It was very fortunate that the old Doctor ordered Myrtle's hair to be
cut, and Miss Silence took the scissors and trimmed it at once. So,
whenever she got well and was seen about, there would be no mystery
about the loss of her locks,--the Doctor had been afraid of brain fever,
and ordered them to cut her hair.
Many things are uncertain in this world, and among them the effect of
a large proportion of the remedies prescribed by physicians. Whether it
was by the use of the means ordered by the old Doctor, or by the
efforts of nature, or by both together, at any rate the first danger was
averted, and the immediate risk from brain fever soon passed over.
But the impression upon her mind and body had been too profound to be
dissipated by a few days' rest. The hysteric stage which the wise old
man had apprehended began to manifest itself by its usual signs, if
anything can be called usual in a condition the natural order of which
is disorder and anomaly.
And now the reader, if such there be, who believes in the absolute
independence and self-determination of the will, and the consequent
total responsibility of every human being for every irregular nervous
action and ill-governed muscular contraction, may as well lay down
this narrative, or he may lose all faith in poor Myrtle Hazard, and all
patience with the writer who tells her story.
The mental excitement so long sustained, followed by a violent shock to
the system, coming just at the period of rapid development, gave rise
to that morbid condition, accompanied with a series of mental and moral
perversions, which in ignorant ages and communities is attributed to the
influence of evil spirits, but for the better-instructed is the malady
which they call hysteria. Few households have ripened a growth of
womanhood without witnessing some of its manifestations, and its
phenomena are largely traded in by scientific pretenders and religious
fanatics. Into this cloud, with all its risks and all its humiliations,
Myrtle Hazard is about to enter. Will she pass through it unharmed,
or wander from her path, and fall over one of those fearful precipices
which lie before her?
After the ancient physician had settled the general plan of treatment,
its details and practical application were left to the care of his son.
Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut was a widower, not yet forty years old, a man of a
fine masculine aspect and a vigorous nature. He was a favorite with his
female patients,--perhaps many of them would have said because he was
good-looking and pleasant in his manners, but some thought in virtue of
a special magnetic power to which certain temperaments were impressible,
though there was no explaining it. But he himself never claimed any
such personal gift, and never attempted any of the exploits which some
thought were in his power if he chose to exercise his faculty in that
direction. This girl was, as it were, a child to him, for he had seen
her grow up from infancy, and had often held her on his knee in her
early years. The first thing he did was to get her a nurse, for he saw
that neither of the two women about her exercised a quieting influence
upon her nerves. So he got her old friend, Nurse Byloe, to come and take
care of her.
The old nurse looked calm enough at one or two of his first visits, but
the next morning her face showed that something had been going wrong.
“Well, what has been the trouble, Nurse?” the Doctor said, as soon as he
could get her out of the room.
“She's been attackted, Doctor, sence you been here, dreadful. It's them
high stirricks, Doctor, 'n' I never see 'em higher, nor more of 'em.
Laughin' as ef she would bust. Cryin' as ef she'd lost all her friends,
'n' was a follerin' their corpse to their graves. And spassums,--sech
spassums! And ketchin' at her throat, 'n' sayin' there was a great ball
a risin' into it from her stommick. One time she had a kind o' lockjaw
like. And one time she stretched herself out 'n' laid jest as stiff as
ef she was dead. And she says now that her head feels as ef a nail had
been driv' into it,--into the left temple, she says, and that's what
makes her look so distressed now.”
The Doctor came once more to her bedside. He saw that her forehead
was contracted, and that she was evidently suffering from severe pain
somewhere.
“Where is your uneasiness, Myrtle?” he asked.
She moved her hand very slowly, and pressed it on her left temple.
He laid his hand upon the same spot, kept it there a moment, and then
removed it. She took it gently with her own, and placed it on her temple
again. As he sat watching her, he saw that her features were growing
easier, and in a short time her deep, even breathing showed that she was
asleep.
“It beats all,” the old nurse said. “Why, she's been a complainin' ever
sence daylight, and she hain't slep' not a wink afore, sence twelve
o'clock las' night! It's j es' like them magnetizers,--I never heerd you
was one o' them kind, Dr. Hurlbut.”
“I can't say how it is, Nurse,--I have heard people say my hand was
magnetic, but I never thought of its quieting her so quickly. No sleep
since twelve o'clock last night, you say?”
“Not a wink, 'n' actin' as ef she was possessed a good deal o' the time.
You read your Bible, Doctor, don't you? You're pious? Do you remember
about that woman in Scriptur' out of whom the Lord cast seven devils?
Well, I should ha' thought there was seventy devils in that gal last
night, from the way she carr'd on. And now she lays there jest as
peaceful as a new-born babe,--that is, accordin' to the sayin' about
'em; for as to peaceful new-born babes, I never see one that come t'
anything, that did n't screech as ef the haouse was afire 'n' it wanted
to call all the fire-ingines within ten mild.”
The Doctor smiled, but he became thoughtful in a moment. Did he possess
a hitherto unexercised personal power, which put the key of this young
girl's nervous system into his hands? The remarkable tranquillizing
effect of the contact of his hand with her forehead looked like an
immediate physical action.
It might have been a mere coincidence, however. He would not form an
opinion until his next visit.
At that next visit it did seem as if some of Nurse Byloe's seventy
devils had possession of the girl. All the strange spasmodic movements,
the chokings, the odd sounds, the wild talk, the laughing and crying,
were in full blast. All the remedies which had been ordered seemed to
have been of no avail. The Doctor could hardly refuse trying his quasi
magnetic influence, and placed the tips of his fingers on her forehead.
The result was the same that had followed the similar proceeding the
day before,--the storm was soon calmed, and after a little time she fell
into a quiet sleep, as in the first instance.
Here was an awkward affair for the physician, to be sure! He held
this power in his hands, which no remedy and no other person seemed to
possess. How long would he be chained to her; and she to him, and
what would be the consequence of the mysterious relation which must
necessarily spring up between a man like him, in the plenitude of vital
force, of strongly attractive personality, and a young girl organized
for victory over the calmest blood and the steadiest resistance?
Every day after this made matters worse. There was something almost
partaking of the miraculous in the influence he was acquiring over her.
His “Peace, be still!” was obeyed by the stormy elements of this young
soul, as if it had been a supernatural command. How could he resist the
dictate of humanity which called him to make his visits more frequent,
that her intervals of rest might be more numerous? How could he refuse
to sit at her bedside for a while in the evening, that she might be
quieted, instead of beginning the night sleepless and agitated?
The Doctor was a man of refined feeling as well as of principle, and he
had besides a sacred memory in the deepest heart of his affections. It
was the common belief in the village that he would never marry again,
but that his first and only love was buried in the grave of the wife
of his youth. It did not easily occur to him to suspect himself of any
weakness with regard to this patient of his, little more than a child
in years. It did not at once suggest itself to him that she, in her
strange, excited condition, might fasten her wandering thoughts upon
him, too far removed by his age, as it seemed, to strike the fancy of a
young girl under almost any conceivable conditions.
Thus it was that many of those beautiful summer evenings found him
sitting by his patient, the river rippling and singing beneath them, the
moon shining over them, sweet odors from the thickets on the banks
of the stream stealing in on the soft air that came through the open
window, and every time they were thus together, the subtile influence
which bound them to each other bringing them more and more into
inexplicable harmonies and almost spiritual identity.
But all this did not hinder the development of new and strange
conditions in Myrtle Hazard. Her will was losing its power. “I cannot
help it”--the hysteric motto--was her constant reply. It is not pleasant
to confess the truth, but she was rapidly undergoing a singular change
of her moral nature. She had been a truthful child. If she had kept
her secret about what she had found in the garret, she thought she was
exercising her rights, and she had never been obliged to tell any lies
about it.
But now she seemed to have lost the healthy instincts for veracity and
honesty. She feigned all sorts of odd symptoms, and showed a wonderful
degree of cunning in giving an appearance of truth to them. It became
next to impossible to tell what was real and what was simulated. At
one time she could not be touched ever so lightly without shrinking and
crying out. At another time she would squint, and again she would be
half paralyzed for a time. She would pretend to fast for days, living on
food she had concealed and took secretly in the night.
The nurse was getting worn out. Kitty Fagan would have had the priest
come to the house and sprinkle it with holy water. The two women
were beginning to get nervous themselves. The Rev. Mr. Stoker said in
confidence to Miss Silence, that there was reason to fear she might have
been given over for a time to the buffetings of Satan, and that perhaps
his (Mr. Stoker's) personal attentions might be useful in that case. And
so it appeared that the “young doctor” was the only being left with whom
she had any complete relations and absolute sympathy. She had become so
passive in his hands that it seemed as if her only healthy life was, as
it were, transmitted through him, and that she depended on the transfer
of his nervous power, as the plant upon the light for its essential
living processes.
The two young men who had met in so unexpected a manner on board
the ship Swordfish had been reasonably discreet in relating their
adventures. Myrtle Hazard may or may not have had the plan they
attributed to her; however that was, they had looked rather foolish when
they met, and had not thought it worth while to be very communicative
about the matter when they returned. It had at least given them a chance
to become a little better acquainted with each other, and it was an
opportunity which the elder and more artful of the two meant to turn to
advantage.
Of all Myrtle's few friends only one was in the habit of seeing her
often during this period, namely, Olive Eveleth, a girl so quiet and
sensible that she, if anybody, could be trusted with her. But Myrtle's
whole character seemed to have changed, and Olive soon found that she
was in some mystic way absorbed into another nature. Except when the
physician's will was exerted upon her, she was drifting without any
self-directing power, and then any one of those manifold impulses which
would in some former ages have been counted as separate manifestations
on the part of distinct demoniacal beings might take possession of her.
Olive did little, therefore, but visit Myrtle from time to time to learn
if any change had occurred in her condition. All this she reported to
Cyprian, and all this was got out of him by Mr. William Murray Bradshaw.
That gentleman was far from being pleased with the look of things as
they were represented. What if the Doctor, who was after all in the
prime of life and younger-looking than some who were born half a dozen
years after him, should get a hold on this young woman,--girl now, if
you will, but in a very few years certain to come within possible, nay,
not very improbable, matrimonial range of him? That would be pleasant,
wouldn't it? It had happened sometimes, as he knew, that these
magnetizing tricks had led to infatuation on the part of the subjects
of the wonderful influence. So he concluded to be ill and consult the
younger Dr. Hurlbut, and incidentally find out how the land lay.
The next question was, what to be ill with. Some not ungentlemanly
malady, not hereditary, not incurable, not requiring any obvious change
in habits of life. Dyspepsia would answer the purpose well enough: so
Mr. Murray Bradshaw picked up a medical book and read ten minutes or
more for that complaint. At the end of this time he was an accomplished
dyspeptic; for lawyers half learn a thing quicker than the members of
any other profession.
He presented himself with a somewhat forlorn countenance to Dr. Fordyce
Hurlbut, as suffering from some of the less formidable symptoms of
that affection. He got into a very interesting conversation with him,
especially about some nervous feelings which had accompanied his attack
of indigestion. Thence to nervous complaints in general. Thence to the
case of the young lady at The Poplars whom he was attending. The Doctor
talked with a certain reserve, as became his professional relations with
his patient; but it was plain enough that, if this kind of intercourse
went on much longer, it would be liable to end in some emotional
explosion or other, and there was no saying how it would at last turn
out.
Murray Bradshaw was afraid to meddle directly. He knew something more
about the history of Myrtle's adventure than any of his neighbors,
and, among other things, that it had given Mr. Byles Gridley a peculiar
interest in her, of which he could take advantage. He therefore artfully
hinted his fears to the old man, and left his hint to work itself out.
However suspicious Master Gridley was of him and his motives, he thought
it worth while to call up at The Poplars and inquire for himself of the
nurse what was this new relation growing up between the physician and
his young patient.
She imparted her opinion to him in a private conversation with great
freedom. “Sech doin's! sech doin's! The gal's jest as much bewitched as
ever any gal was sence them that was possessed in Scriptur'. And every
day it 's wus and wus. Ef that Doctor don't stop comin', she won't
breathe without his helpin' her to before long. And, Mr. Gridley, I
don't like to say so,--but I can't help thinkin' he's gettin' a little
bewitched too. I don't believe he means to take no kind of advantage of
her; but, Mr. Gridley, you've seen them millers fly round and round a
candle, and you know how it ginerally comes out. Men is men and gals is
gals. I would n't trust no man, not ef he was much under a hundred year
old,--and as for a gal--!”
“Mulieri ne mortuae quidem credendum est,” said Mr. Gridley. “You
wouldn't trust a woman even if she was dead, hey, Nurse?”
“Not till she was buried, 'n' the grass growin' a foot high over her,”
said Nurse Byloe, “unless I'd know'd her sence she was a baby. I've
know'd this one sence she was two or three year old; but this gal ain't
Myrtle Hazard no longer,--she's bewitched into somethin' different. I'll
tell ye what, Mr. Gridley; you get old Dr. Hurlbut to come and see her
once a day for a week, and get the young doctor to stay away. I'll resk
it. She 'll have some dreadful tantrums at fust, but she'll come to it
in two or three, days.”
Master Byles Gridley groaned in spirit. He had come to this village to
end his days in peace, and here he was just going to make a martyr
of himself for the sake of a young person to whom he was under no
obligation, except that he had saved her from the consequences of her
own foolish act, at the expense of a great overturn of all his domestic
habits. There was no help for it. The nurse was right, and he must
perform the disagreeable duty of letting the Doctor know that he was
getting into a track which might very probably lead to mischief, and
that he must back out as fast as he could.
At 2 P. M. Gifted Hopkins presented the following note at the Doctor's
door:
“Mr. Byles Gridley would be much obliged to Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut if he
would call at his study this evening.”
“Odd, is n't it, father, the old man's asking me to come and see him?
Those old stub-twist constitutions never want patching.”
“Old man! old man! Who's that you call old,--not Byles Gridley, hey?
Old! old! Sixty year, more or less! How old was Floyer when he died,
Fordyce? Ninety-odd, was n't it? Had the asthma though, or he'd have
lived to be as old as Dr. Holyoke,--a hundred year and over. That's old.
But men live to be a good deal more than that sometimes. What does Byles
Gridley want of you, did you say?”
“I'm sure I can't tell, father; I'll go and find out.” So he went over
to Mrs. Hopkins's in the evening, and was shown up into the study.
Master Gridley treated the Doctor to a cup of such tea as bachelors
sometimes keep hid away in mysterious caddies. He presently began asking
certain questions about the grand climacteric, which eventful period of
life he was fast approaching. Then he discoursed of medicine, ancient
and modern, tasking the Doctor's knowledge not a little, and evincing a
good deal of acquaintance with old doctrines and authors.
He had a few curious old medical books in his library, which he said he
should like to show Dr. Hurlbut.
“There, now! What do you say to this copy of Joannes de Ketam, Venice,
1522? Look at these woodcuts,--the first anatomical pictures ever
printed, Doctor, unless these others of Jacobus Berengarius are older!
See this scene of the plague-patient, the doctor smelling at his
pouncet-box, the old nurse standing square at the bedside, the young
nurse with the bowl, holding back and turning her head away, and the old
burial-hag behind her, shoving her forward, a very curious book, Doctor,
and has the first phrenological picture in it ever made. Take a look,
too, at my Vesalius,--not the Leyden edition, Doctor, but the one with
the grand old original figures,--so good that they laid them to Titian.
And look here, Doctor, I could n't help getting this great
folio Albinus, 1747,--and the nineteenth century can't touch it,
Doctor,--can't touch it for completeness and magnificence, so all the
learned professors tell me! Brave old fellows, Doctor, and put their
lives into their books as you gentlemen don't pretend to do nowadays.
And good old fellows, Doctor,--high-minded, scrupulous, conscientious,
punctilious,--remembered their duties to man and to woman, and felt all
the responsibilities of their confidential relation to families. Did you
ever read the oldest of medical documents,--the Oath of Hippocrates?”
The Doctor thought he had read it, but did not remember much about it.
“It 's worth reading, Doctor,--it's worth remembering; and, old as it
is, it is just as good to-day as it was when it was laid down as a
rule of conduct four hundred years before the Sermon on the Mount was
delivered. Let me read it to you, Dr. Hurlbut.”
There was something in Master Gridley's look that made the Doctor feel a
little nervous; he did not know just what was coming.
Master Gridley took out his great Hippocrates, the edition of Foesius,
and opened to the place. He turned so as to face the Doctor, and read
the famous Oath aloud, Englishing it as he went along. When he came
to these words which follow, he pronounced them very slowly and with
special emphasis.
“My life shall be pure and holy.”
“Into whatever house I enter, I will go for the good of the patient:
“I will abstain from inflicting any voluntary injury, and from leading
away any, whether man or woman, bond or free.”
The Doctor changed color as he listened, and the moisture broke out on
his forehead.
Master Gridley saw it, and followed up his advantage. “Dr. Fordyce
Hurlbut, are you not in danger of violating the sanctities of your
honorable calling, and leading astray a young person committed to your
sacred keeping?”
While saying these words, Master Gridley looked full upon him, with a
face so charged with grave meaning, so impressed with the gravity of his
warning accents, that the Doctor felt as if he were before some dread
tribunal, and remained silent. He was a member of the Rev. Mr. Stoker's
church, and the words he had just listened to were those of a sinful old
heathen who had never heard a sermon in his life; but they stung
him, for all that, as the parable of the prophet stung the royal
transgressor.
He spoke at length, for the plain honest words had touched the right
spring of consciousness at the right moment; not too early, for he now
saw whither he was tending,--not too late, for he was not yet in the
inner spirals of the passion which whirls men and women to their doom in
ever-narrowing coils, that will not unwind at the command of God or man.
He spoke as one who is humbled by self-accusation, yet in a manly way,
as became his honorable and truthful character.
“Master Gridley,” he said, “I stand convicted before you. I know
too well what you are thinking of. It is true, I cannot continue my
attendance on Myrtle--on Miss Hazard, for you mean her--without peril
to both of us. She is not herself. God forbid that I should cease to be
myself! I have been thinking of a summer tour, and I will at once set
out upon it, and leave this patient in my father's hands. I think he
will find strength to visit her under the circumstances.”
The Doctor went off the next morning without saying a word to Myrtle
Hazard, and his father made the customary visit in his place.
That night the spirit tare her, as may well be supposed, and so the
second night. But there was no help for it: her doctor was gone, and the
old physician, with great effort, came instead, sat by her, spoke kindly
to her, left wise directions to her attendants, and above all assured
them that, if they would have a little patience, they would see all this
storm blow over.
On the third night after his visit, the spirit rent her sore, and came
out of her, or, in the phrase of to-day, she had a fierce paroxysm,
after which the violence of the conflict ceased, and she might be called
convalescent so far as that was concerned.
But all this series of nervous disturbances left her in a very
impressible and excitable condition. This was just the state to invite
the spiritual manipulations of one of those theological practitioners
who consider that the treatment of all morbid states of mind short
of raving madness belongs to them and not to the doctors. This same
condition was equally favorable for the operations of any professional
experimenter who would use the flame of religious excitement to light
the torch of an earthly passion. So many fingers that begin on the black
keys stray to the white ones before the tune is played out!
If Myrtle Hazard was in charge of any angelic guardian, the time was at
hand when she would need all celestial influences; for the Rev. Joseph
Bellamy Stoker was about to take a deep interest in her spiritual
welfare.'