With all the doctor’s quaint ideas and strong prejudices, I have

said that he was a thorough gentleman. He was of the kind meant for

use, and not for show. Good Heavens! What would your dashing British

Æsculapius, in his brougham or well-appointed dog-cart, have said to my

old friend’s appearance when setting out for a long winter day’s work?

I can see him now, riding in at the gate on some wild January day,

bringing hope in his kindly face, and good conservative, time-honored

drugs in his well-worn saddle-bags. A woollen scarf is drawn round his

head, and on the top of it is crammed an ancient wide-awake. A long

black cloak, fastened round his throat with a clasp, and lined with

red flannel, falls over the saddle behind. His legs, good soul, are

thickly encased in coils of wheat straw, wound tightly round them from

his ankles upwards. In his hand, by way of a whip, he carries a bushy

switch plucked from the nearest tree, and upon one heel a rusty spur

that did duty at Bull’s Run.

Now do not suppose that the doctor on such occasions was regarded as

a scarecrow, or that his neighbors looked upon him as eccentric or

even careless of attire; on the contrary, this was a good old Virginia

costume. The doctor’s appearance as above described was not the

desperate expedient of a frontier and transitory condition--not at all.

It was a survival of two hundred years of a peculiar civilization; a

civilization that had been wont to look inside the plantation fence for

almost every necessary; a patriarchal dispensation whose simplicity was

to a great extent the outcome of exclusiveness; a social organization

wherein each man’s place was so absolutely fixed, that personal

apparel was a matter of almost no moment, and personal display, such

as engages the well-to-do of other countries in mischievous rivalry,

was hardly known.

The general shabbiness of Virginia was not the temporary shabbiness of

a pioneering generation--that condition everybody can understand--but

the picturesque and almost defiant tatterdemalionism of quite an old

and thoroughly self-satisfied community, unstimulated by contact with

the outer world. It was a mellow, time-honored kind of shabbiness of

which Virginians are almost proud, regarding it as a sort of mute

protest, though an extreme one, against those modern innovations which

their souls abhorred. The doctor had been a widower since the first

year of the war. In accordance with local custom, he had buried his

wife in the orchard. A simple marble shaft in that homely quarter spoke

of her virtues and her worth to the colts and calves that bit the sweet

May grass around her tomb, and to the inquiring swine that crunched the

rotting apples as they fell in autumn from the untended trees. Neither

had the doctor been blessed with sons or daughters. Who would he “’ar

(heir as a verb) his place to” was a common subject of discussion among

the negroes on the property. The doctor’s profession, no doubt, was

his first care; but his heart was with his farms and his fox-hounds.

The doctor had practised over, or, as we used to say there, “ridden”

the south side of the country for nearly forty years. He had studied

medicine with the intention only of saving the doctor’s bill in his

father’s household of eighty negroes. He had soon, however, dropped

into a regular practice, and for the last five-and-twenty years, at any

rate, no birth or death within a radius of ten miles would have been

considered a well-conducted one without his good offices. The doctor’s

income, upon the well-thumbed scroll of hieroglyphics that he called

his books, was nearly three thousand dollars a year. He collected

probably about fifteen hundred. A considerable portion, too, of this

fifteen hundred was received in kind payments, not conveniently

convertible, such as bacon, Indian corn, hams, wheat flour, woollen

yarns, sucking pigs, home-made brooms, eggs, butter, bricks,

sweet-potato slips, sawn plank, tobacco-plants, shingles, chickens,

baskets, sausage-meat, sole-leather, young fruit trees, rawhides,

hoe-handles, old iron. To utilize these various commodities, it would

have been necessary for the doctor to have had a farm, even supposing

he had not already been the fortunate proprietor of two. Indeed, a farm

to a Southern doctor is not only necessary as a receptacle for the

agricultural curiosities that are forced upon him in lieu of payment,

but for the actual labor of those many dusky patients who can give no

other return for physic and attendance received. You could see a bevy

of these Ethiopians almost any day upon the doctor’s farm, wandering

aimlessly about with hoes or brier-blades, chattering and cackling and

doing everything but work.

The doctor might have been called a successful physician. He had no

rivals. There were two inferior performers in the district, it is

true, who were by way of following the healing art--small farmers, who

were reported to have studied medicine in their youth. One of these,

however, had not credit sufficient to purchase drugs, and the other

was generally drunk. So it was only their near relations, when not

dangerously indisposed, who patronized them--or some patient of the

doctor’s now and again, perhaps, who took a fancy the latter was too

“aristocratic,” till he got badly sick, and returned with alacrity

to his allegiance. There is no doubt, I fear, but that the doctor

practised on the lines of thirty years ago. Tory to the backbone in

every other department of life, it was hardly to be expected that he

should have panted for light and leading in that branch of learning in

which he had no rival within reach. Papers or magazines connected with

the healing science I never remember to have seen inside the Patton

homestead; and yet, after a great deal of experience of the good old

man’s professional care, I have a sort of feeling that I would as soon

place my life in his hands as in the hands of Sir Omicron Pi!

What time the doctor had to spare from physicking, I have said he

devoted to farming and to fox-hunting. I should like to follow him for

a bit on his long professional rounds, and listen to his cheery talk in

homestead and cabin; to help him fill his long pipe, which he draws out

of his top-boot when the patient has settled down to sleep or quiet; to

hear him once again chat about tobacco and wheat, politics and foxes.

I should like, too, to say something of the doctor’s farming--heaven

save the mark--on his two properties; the one “’ard” him by his father,

and the other one, the quarter place near by, that “cum to him with his

wife, ole Cunnel Pendleton’s daughter.”

I must only pause to remark, however, that the doctor farmed, as he

did everything else, in the good old Virginia fashion--or in what

is now irreverently known as the “rip and tar (tear) principle.” He

didn’t care anything about acres or estimates; and as for farm books,

his professional accounts pestered him quite enough. Of rotations,

he neither knew nor wanted to know anything. His great idea was to

plough and sow as much land as he could scuffle over with all the labor

he could scrape together. Of manuring, clovering, or fertilizing,

he took little account. If he “pitched” a big crop only, he was a

proud and happy man. When each recurring harvest brought results

more insignificant than the last, a temporary disgust with the whole

business used to seize on my old friend, and he would swear that the

wheat crops had been of no account since the war; that tobacco had gone

to the devil, and that he’d quit fooling with a plantation for good and

all. In the eyes of those who knew him, however, such tirades meant

absolutely nothing. A Virginian of his description could no more have

helped farming than he could have altered any other of the immutable

laws of nature. A younger generation, and many indeed of the older

one, have learned wisdom and prudence in the management of land since

the abolition of slavery. The doctor, however, and the few left like

him, will be land-killers of the genial good old sort till they lie

under the once generous sod they have so ruthlessly treated.

The doctor’s first care was of necessity his patients; but there is

no doubt, I think, that his real affections were divided between his

farm and his fox-hounds. That he did his duty by the former was amply

testified to by the popularity he enjoyed. That he signally failed in

the treatment of his lands was quite as evident. For while he healed

the sores and the wounds of his patients, the sores, the wounds,

the storm-rent gullies, the bare galls in his hillsides, grew worse

and worse. The maize-stalks grew thinner, the tobacco lighter, the

wheat-yield poorer, year by year. One has heard of famous painters,

who perversely fancied themselves rather as musicians--of established

authors who yearned rather to be praised as artists. So the doctor,

who certainly had no local rival in his own profession, seemed to

covet fame rather as the champion and exponent of a happily departing

school of Southern agriculturists. In this case, the income derived

from the profession just sufficed to make good the losses on the farm.

So, though the doctor, in spite of his household expenses being almost

_nil_, could never by any chance lay his hand on a five-dollar bill, he

managed to keep upon the whole pretty free from debt. With a scattered

practice, and an agricultural hobby extending over one thousand

acres, including woods and old fields “turned out” to recover, it may

be a matter of surprise that our old friend had leisure for a third

indulgence, especially one like fox-hunting, which is connected in the

British mind with such a large consumption of time. Nevertheless, the

doctor, like most of his compeers, was passionately fond of the chase,

and in spite of the war and altered times, had kept hounds round him

almost without a break since he was a boy. It will be seen, however,

that fox-hunting, as understood and followed by the doctor, was by no

means incompatible with his more serious avocations.

Now, if the fashion in which the doctor pursued the wily fox was not

orthodox from a Leicestershire point of view, it was for all that none

the less, perhaps indeed so much the more, genuine. Around New York

and Philadelphia, it is true, the sport is pursued by fashionable

bankers, brokers, and lawyers in a style the most approved. All the

bravery and the glitter, ay, and much of the horsemanship of the

British hunting-field, is there. But, like polo and coaching, it is

there as a mere exotic, transplanted but yesterday, to the amazement

and occasionally indignation of the Long Island rustics and the delight

of the society papers. Everything is there--hounds, huntsmen, whips,

red coats, tops, splendidly mounted hard-riding ladies and gentlemen,

sherry-flasks, sandwich-boxes, etc., etc.,--everything, in short, but

the fox. So far, however, as I can learn, such an omission is of no

great importance under the modern conception of hunting. That wouldn’t

be the doctor’s way of thinking at all, though; for I must here remark,

that that worthy sportsman’s love of hunting is entirely on hereditary

principles and of native growth. Fox-hunting for two centuries has been

the natural pastime of the Virginia gentry. They imported the chase of

the fox and its customs from the mother country at a period when such

things were conducted in a very different style from what they are now.

The hunting of the fox, as carried on in England early in the last

century, let us say, offered, I take it, a very different spectacle

from that seen in the elaborate and gorgeous cavalcades and the rushing

fleet-footed hounds that race to-day over the trim, well-trained turf

of the shires. No foxes were killed in those days in twenty-five

minutes, I’ll warrant. Men started their fox at daybreak and pottered

along, absorbed in the performance of their slow hounds, over the

rushy, soppy, heathy country, from wood to wood, for hours and hours.

They were lucky then, no doubt, if Reynard succumbed in time to admit

of their punctual appearance at that tremendous three o’clock orgie,

which the poet Thomson has so graphically laid before us.

Amid the glitter, the show, the dash, the swagger of modern

fox-hunting, Englishmen who are not masters of hounds or huntsmen are

apt to lose sight of the original ends and aims, the craft, and the

science of the sport. It seems to me that fox-hunting nowadays, with

the vast mass of its devotees, is simply steeplechasing over an unknown

course. This is unquestionably a manly and a fine amusement, and far be

it from me to breathe a word against it. I only wish to anticipate the

sneers of your sporting stock-broker if he were to catch sight of the

doctor and his hounds upon a hunting morning.

With the average Nimrod of modern days, I venture then to assert

that fox-hunting is only a modified form of steeplechasing. With the

Virginian, who is simply a survival of other days, it is nothing of the

kind. The doctor knew nothing of bullfinches or double ditches, of post

and rails or five-barred gates, in a sporting sense; but what he did

not know about a fox was not worth knowing at all. As for his hounds,

he could tell the note of each at a distance when the music of a whole

pack was scarcely audible to the ordinary ear.

As far as I remember, the doctor used generally to keep about five

couple of hounds. It is needless to say he always swore they were the

“best stock of fox-dogs in the State.” Jim Pendleton, his cousin across

the hill, and Judge Massey, on the north side of the county, who also

kept hounds, were quite prepared to take an affidavit of the same kind

with regard to their own respective packs. The doctor’s hounds lived as

members of the family. A kind of effort was spasmodically made to keep

them from appropriating the parlor, and so long as the weather was

mild, they were fairly content to lie in the front porch, or in one of

the many passages which let the air circulate freely through the Patton

homestead.

If the weather was cold, however, and the doctor had a fire in the

parlor, the older and more knowing dogs seldom failed eventually to

gain a lodgment. By persistently coming in at one door, and when kicked

out by the long-suffering M. F. H., slowly going round the house and

slyly entering at the other, they invariably conquered in the long run,

and established themselves on the warm bricks of the hearth before the

great white-oak logs which blazed on the bright brass and irons.

Of course it was not often that the doctor and his hounds were all at

home together on a winter’s day. If the latter were not hunting with

him, they were out upon their own account, for, be it noted, they were

absolutely their own masters, as is the way with Virginia fox-hounds.

If the doctor chose to accompany them and do a great deal of tooting

and some hallooing, I have no doubt a certain amount of satisfaction

animated the breasts of the pack. But it made no difference whatever

to the sporting arrangements they had planned among themselves, or

to their general programme. Whatever happened, they were bound to

have their hunt. As the doctor’s pride and joy was not in his own

performance in the pigskin--for he never attempted any--but in the

achievements of his dogs, this want of discipline and respect was no

drawback whatever to his satisfaction.

I have said the doctor could combine his favorite sport with the

exercise of his profession. That is to say, if he were going out in any

likely direction, he would manage to keep his hounds around him till

he had despatched his lamplight breakfast, and they would all start

together. The pack, moreover, was easily increased, for the doctor had

only to step around to the back porch, which looked across the valley

to Cousin Jim Pendleton’s place, and to blow lustily on his tremendous

cow-horn.

A very little of this music was sufficient to bring the greater part of

the rival pack scrambling in a half-guilty way over the garden fence.

After a little growling and snarling and snapping, the strangers would

settle down among the doctor’s hounds as if they had been raised on the

place.

See the doctor attired for the chase emerging with his hounds from

that awful front gate of his, which is being held up and open by

the combined efforts of two stalwart negroes. It is a mild and soft

February morning, at about the hour when the sun would be seen mounting

over the leafless woodlands to the east of the house, if it were

not for the dark banks of clouds chasing one another in continuous

succession from the southwest. The doctor is not quite such a scarecrow

to-day. The weather is mild, and he has left the coils of straw behind,

having his stout legs encased in grey homespun overalls, which he calls

leggings. The long Bull’s Run spur is on his left heel. The black cloak

with the red lining is on his back. The slouch hat upon his head, and

spectacles upon his nose. A high standup collar of antique build and a

black stock give the finishing touch to a picture whose “old-timiness,”

as the Americans say, would have thrown a Boston novelist into

convulsions of ecstasy.

The doctor this morning is combining business with pleasure. He has to

visit the widow Gubbins, who fell down the cornhouse steps the week

before, and broke her leg. But he has had word sent to him that there

is a red fox in the pine wood behind the parsonage, hard by the Gubbins

domicile. I need not say the saddle-bags and the medicine bottles are

there; but, besides these, there is a great big cow-horn which the

doctor carries slung round him, and blows long blasts upon as he goes

“titupping” down the muddy lane. These blasts are rather with a view of

personal solace than for any definite aims. The doctor loves the horn

for its associations, and goes toot-tooting down the soft red road, and

waking the echoes of the woods and fields solely for his own personal

benefit and refreshment. Hector and Rambler, Fairfax and Dainty, and

the rest--little wiry, lean fellows of about two-and-twenty inches--hop

over the big mudholes, or creep around the dry fence corners waiting

for the first bit of unfenced woodland to trot over and commence the

day’s operations.

The doctor, however, is determined, if possible, to keep them in hand

till they reach the haunt of that aforesaid red fox which is said

to be lurking in the parson’s wood. He hopes to be able to exercise

authority sufficient to keep these independent dogs of his from getting

on the trail of a ringing, skulking grey fox in the first ivy thicket

or open bit of forest they come to. It is no manner of use, however.

The rutty, soppy road, soon after it leaves the doctor’s estate,

straggles unfenced through half a mile of mazy woodland. Though it is

a historic turnpike of old coaching fame--a road the memory of whose

once bustling gaiety well-nigh brings tears to the eyes of the old

inhabitants--it is scarcely visible to the rare wagoner or horseman

in these degenerate times, from the wealth of autumn leaves that hide

its rugged face. Into the wood plunge the eager and undisciplined

hounds, the dry leaves crackling and rustling under their joyous feet

as they scamper and race amid the tall oak and poplar trunks, and one

by one disappear beyond the very limited horizon. The doctor toots and

toots till not only the forest but the hills and valleys beyond echo

to the appeals of the familiar cow-horn. Mighty little, however, care

the dogs for such tooting. They look upon it as a harmless sign of

encouragement, a pleasant accompaniment to the preliminaries until the

more serious work begins. Nor do they care in the least when the doctor

drops his horn and begins to halloo and shout and storm--not they. He

might as well shout and storm at the wind. The doctor gets very mad.

He doesn’t swear--Virginians of his class and kind very seldom do--but

he uses all the forms of violent exhortation that his conscience admits

of, and that belongs to the local vernacular. He calls the whole pack

“grand scoundrels and villains.” In a voice grown husky with exertion,

he inquires of their fast-fading forms if they know “what in thunder

he feeds them for?” He roars out to little Blazer, the only one left

within good speaking distance that he’ll “whale the life out of him;”

whereupon little Blazer disappears after the rest. So he finally

confides to the sorrel mare, which is ambling along under him at the

regulation five-mile-an-hour gait of the Southern roadster, that

these dogs of Cousin Jeems’ (the doctor says “Jeems,” not because he

doesn’t know any better, but because it is a good old Virginia way of

pronouncing the name) are the hardest-headed lot of fox-dogs south of

the Potomac River.

But hark! There is a boom from the pine wood, the deep green of whose

fringe can be seen far away through the naked stems and leafless

branches of the oaks. The doctor pulls up; he “concludes he’ll wait

awhile and see what it amounts to, any way.” The scoundrels are

probably fooling after a rabbit, or, at the best, have struck the trail

of a grey fox (the most common native breed, that won’t face the open

or run straight). The doctor draws rein at the edge of the wood, where

the straggling forest road once more becomes a highway, fenced in from

fields of young wheat, pasture and red fallow. He thinks the widow

Gubbins can wait a bit, and that old red fox at the parson’s can lay

over for another day.

“That’s old Powhatan, cert’n and sure; and that’s a fox of some sort,

I’ll sw’ar,” remarks our old friend to the sorrel mare, which pricks up

her ears as another deep note comes echoing from the valley below.

It is late in February; and though February in Virginia is practically

the same dead, colorless, leafless, budless, harsh winter month it is

with us, yet there are sometimes days before it closes that seem to

breathe of a yet distant spring with more witching treachery than the

greatest effort that period can make in our more methodical clime. And

this is one of them. The soft and balmy air is laden, it is true, with

no scent of blossoms or opening buds. The odor of smouldering heaps of

burning brush and weeds, or of tardily burnt tobacco-plant beds, is all

that as yet scents the breeze. But after a month of frost and rain and

snow and clouds, the breath is the breath of spring, and the glow of

the sun, now bursting through the clouds, seems no longer the sickly

glare of winter. The soft Virginia landscape, swelling in gentle waves

of forest, field, and fallow to the great mountains that lie piled up

far away against the western sky, is naked still and bare, save for

the splashes of green pine woods here and there upon the land. But

there is a light in the sky and a feel in the air that seems almost

to chide the earth for its slow response. The blood courses quicker

through the veins of even easy-going Virginia farmers at the thoughts

of seeding-time. The negro’s head comes up from under his shoulders and

his hands from his pockets, where they have each respectively spent

most of the winter, and the air becomes laden with those peculiar

dirges that mark the Ethiopian’s contentment of mind at the prospect

of warm weather and of his limbs once more becoming “souple.” The

soft breeze begins to coat the tops of the damp furrows with a thin,

powdery crust that in a few days’ time will be converted into that

March dust so universally beloved of farmers. The young wheat, smitten

and scorched and beaten almost out of recognition, lifts its head

once again and spreads a carpet of tender green to the sun. The early

lambs, beginning to think that after all they were not sent into the

world to shiver behind strawstacks, frisk and gambol in the fields.

The blacksmiths’ shops at the cross roads and the courthouse villages

are thronged with colored laborers and tenants, whose masters, now

seeding-time is upon them, have suddenly remembered that every plow

in the place is out of fix, and not a harrow has its full complement

of teeth. The light breezes from the southwest moans softly in the

pines; but among the deciduous trees not a withered shred of foliage is

left for it to stir, and the silence is complete. The freshly awakened

sunlight streams softly down between the leafless branches and the

rugged trunks of oak and chestnut, hickory and poplar, and plays upon

the golden carpet of wasted leaves that hides the earth beneath them.

The doctor, as he stands at the edge of the forest, would ordinarily

upon such a day be deep in agricultural reveries of a most sanguine

nature. But he is now waiting for one more note of evidence that there

is a prospect of what he would call “a chase”--hesitating as to the

widow Gubbins.

Suddenly there is a great commotion in the wooded valley beneath, and

in a few seconds you might be in Leicestershire spinny, so busy and

joyful are the little pack with their tongues. “That’s a fox, any way,”

says the doctor to the sorrel mare, “and, likely as not, a red.” Two

small farmers, jogging down the road, pull up their horses and yell

with the peculiar shrill scream that is traditionally as much a part of

Virginia fox-hunting as the familiar cries of the British hunting-field

are with us. The doctor, though his voice is not what it was thirty

years ago, catches the infection, and standing up in his wooden,

leather-capped stirrups, halloos at his hounds in what he would call

“real old Virginia fashion.”

“By G--d! it’s a red,” says one of the small farmers, who had perched

himself on the top of the fence, so as to look down over the sloping

tree-tops on to the opposite hill.

“The dogs are out of the wood, and are streakin’ it up the broom-sedge

field yonder--dawg my skin if they ain’t!”

This is too much for the doctor.

“Pull down the fence, gentlemen, for God’s sake! and we’ll push on up

to the old Matthews graveyard on top of the hill. We shall see right

smart of the chase from there. I know that old fox; he’ll go straight

to the pines on Squire Harrison’s quarter place.”

The four or five top rails are tossed off the snake fence; but the

doctor can’t wait for the remaining six. The long spur is applied to

the flank of the sorrel mare, the apple switch to her shoulder. Amid a

crashing and scattering of rotten chestnut-rails, the doctor, cloak,

and spectacles, saddle-bags, pills, medicine-bottles, and overalls,

lands safely in the corn-stalk field upon the other side. The two

farmers follow through the fearful breach he has made, and they may

soon all be heard upon the opposite hill cheering and yelling to the

hounds, which by this time are well out of reach of such encouraging

sounds. Neither the country, nor the horse, nor the doctor is adapted

for riding to hounds; nor, as I have before intimated, has the

latter any idea of doing so. The good man wants to hear as much as

possible--of the chase; but when he neither sees nor hears a great

deal--which, when a strong red fox goes straight away, is generally the

case--he will still take much delight in collecting the details from

other sources.

If his hounds eventually kill their fox half-way across the county,

friends and neighbors, who became accidental witnesses of various

stages of the chase, and each of whom did their share of hallooing and

cheering, will send round word to the “old doctor,” or “call by” the

next time they pass his house, and cheer his heart with praises of

his dogs. The doctor will probably have bandaged Mrs. Gubbins’s leg,

and be half-way home by the time the death-scene takes place, in some

laurel thicket possibly miles and miles away from the corner where

we left our friend bursting through the fence. Not more than half a

dozen, probably, of the fourteen or fifteen hounds with which the

doctor started, will assist at the finish. Two or three of the puppies

will have dropped out early in the day, and come home hunting rabbits

all the way. Three or four more are perhaps just over distemper, and

will fall in their tracks, to come limping and crawling home at noon.

Rambler and Fairfax, however, having assisted at the finish, and being

perhaps the most knowing old dogs of the lot, will have trotted round

to old Colonel Peyton’s close by. They are mighty hungry--for Virginia

hounds won’t touch foxes’ flesh--and they succeed in slipping into the

log kitchen in the yard, while Melindy, the cook, is outside collecting

chips, and abstracting from the top of the stove an entire ham. The

said ham was just prepared for the colonel’s supper; but in fox-hunting

all is forgiven. So after a little burst of wrath he reckons they are

the old doctor’s clogs, shuts them up in the granary, and gives them

a cake of corn-bread apiece. The following day is Saturday, and the

colonel’s son, home from school for a holiday, thinks it an opportunity

for a rabbit-hunt in the pines behind the house not to be missed. So

Rambler and Fairfax are introduced to the proposed scene of action in

the morning. After condescending to an hour of this amusement, they

hold a canine consultation, and start for home, where they finally

arrive about sundown, to be made much of by the doctor, who has already

heard of the finish from a negro who was splitting rails close by.

The doctor’s satisfaction is quite as great as if he had cut down a

whole Leicestershire field in the fastest thing of the season. His

heart warms towards those undersized, harsh-coated, slab-sided little

friends of his as he stands watching the negro woman breaking up their

supper of hot corn-bread with buttermilk as a treat, on the back porch.

They have all come in by this time, and scuffle and growl and snap

around the board as the food is thrown to them.

The knowing ones take advantage of such an evening as this to assert,

with more than usual assurance, their right of entry to the house. The

doctor has had his supper, and hopes that no ominous shout from the

darkness will, for this night at any rate, call him to some distant

sick-bed. He has drawn up his one-armed rocking-chair to the parlor

fire, and by the kerosene lamp is poring over the last oration on

free trade by that grand old Virginia gentleman and senator, Mr.

Jefferson Randolph Beverly Page. Conscious, as it were, that some

extra indulgence is deserved on this night, the dogs begin to crawl

in. One by one, beginning with the oldest and wiliest and ending with

the timidest puppy, they steal into the room and become grouped in the

order of their audacity from the glowing bricks of the hearth outward

to the door.

Nor to-night has the doctor kicks or cuffs or anathemas for the very

worst of them.

The great oak logs blaze and crackle and roar in the wide chimney, and

the light of the flames flickers over the quaint, low-ceilinged room

with its whitewashed walls, black wainscotting, and homely decorations;

over the antlers on the door, that recall some early exploit of the

doctor’s in West Virginia wilds; over the odds and ends of old silver

on the sideboard, that have been saved from the wreck of the Patton

grandeur; over the big oil-painting of the famous jurist, and the

dimmer, smokier visages of less distinguished but remoter ancestors,

who believed in the divine right of kings and knew nothing of republics

and universal suffrage. Here, however, surrounded by his dogs, we must

take leave of the doctor. There are few like him left now in Virginia,

and fewer still who have clung to the good and bad of a departed era

with the same uncompromising tenacity as our old friend. They were a

fine race--deny it who will--these old Virginia squires; provincial and

prejudiced perhaps, but full of originality and manly independence.

Their ideas, it is true, are not those of the latter half of the

nineteenth century, but the men themselves are passing rapidly away,

and their ideas with them. Those who have known them can only regret

that a strong, picturesque, and admirable type of Anglo-Saxon has

disappeared forever from the ranks of our great family, unpainted by a

single master-hand of contemporary date.

A. G. BRADLEY.

XX

THE DOCTOR’S FRONT YARD.

IT ALL began with the tap of a gavel--an imposing white gavel adorned

with a yellow bow and resounding like the crack of doom. Behind it,

under a nodding purple ostrich feather, sat Mrs. Bunker; before it the

eight awe-struck members of the Village Improvement Society; enveloping

us all in its cold, judicial atmosphere was room No. 10 of the new town

building, maintained as a meeting place in order to give dignity to our

association, and its rent representing just so many entertainments and

strawberry-festivals per annum.

Mrs. Bunker is the “progressive woman” of West Hedgeworth. She lives

in that large, white house with the terraces and box borders and a

fountain, just where you turn into Main street. She goes to Boston

twice each season to get clothes and ideas upon which she feeds our

little social circle through the medium of clubs and afternoon teas.

The clothes are remarkable, the ideas equally up to date; we look upon

her with reverence and obey her slightest mandate.

I believe I am the only one who now and then rebels inwardly. Why, for

example, I should have been considered eligible for the V. I. S., a

girl of twenty-three, with not the slightest pretensions to domestic

talent or judgment, except that I have had to take care of father and

the boys for the last few years, I couldn’t see,--nor could any one

else; but Mrs. Bunker had ordained that I should go into it, and I had

no choice.

“You are a very clever girl, Irene,” she explained severely, as if this

were a situation to be deprecated, but could be atoned for by penance

of some sort, “and it would be extremely unfortunate for you to have no

outlet for your talents. People should take up the work that best suits

them.”

I withdrew all objections, of course. If Mrs. Bunker pronounces one

clever, no matter how wretched one may be under the verdict, there is

never any appeal from it. But as the progressive woman is always ready

to shoulder the responsibility of her friends’ cleverness, I haven’t

found mine a very great burden. So far as the duties of membership in

the Village Improvement Society are concerned, they only consist in

doing as one is bid. The gavel roused me from a study of bonnets. Mrs.

Suter, the wife of our good druggist, and Mrs. Pitman, the postmaster’s

lady, always faithfully advertise the village milliner in familiar

black-lace-covered frames, the one adorned with aggressive bunches

of buttercups, the other trailed over by a hairy-leaved poppy. Mrs.

Cope, the Episcopal clergyman’s wife, has the parish down upon her

for appearing in unmistakable French headgear, simple, but beyond

imitation; it does not justify her in their eyes that the hats come

from a rich relative, and the poor soul is credited with proud and

haughty aspirations, of which she is as innocent as a babe. Miss Maria

Withers’ strong point is not fashion; so the little parched, limp,

black bonnet which she has found satisfactory for eight years, still

perches above her gray curls. I was absorbed in working out a series of

arguments on the effect of dress upon character, when the white gavel

descended and the Society came to order with a start.

We are nothing if not parliamentary. The latest manual lies at

Mrs. Bunker’s right hand. Miss Scrapson, of the academy, makes an

excellent secretary, and her minutes are comprehensive. Miss Withers,

as treasurer, is somewhat rambling and uncertain. Her reports are

subject to pauses, silent mental calculations and ejaculations of “Dear

me,--no, that wasn’t it--just wait a minute,” and excursions into a

little black bag which she carries, after missing items on stray scraps

of paper. Mrs. Bunker bears this with self-control, as Miss Maria has

valuable qualities. Miss Scrapson and Mrs. Cope play into her hands

most cleverly in a discussion over a motion or a point of order. We

manage to have a little unfinished business on the carpet, usually, to

give style to the meeting, and altogether maintain an air of importance

which is quite remarkable for a small village club. But on this

particular day, a May morning, I saw in our president’s eye that there

was something new and exciting to be taken up.

“Ladies,” she announced at last, “our spring campaign is opening with

opportunities of no mean order. The village of West Hedgeworth is

menaced with a disgrace which so far outdoes in horror even the peanut

shells on the post-office floor and the loose papers on the common that

words almost fail me as I mention it. Give me your close attention,

please.”

Ever since the meeting when Mrs. Bunker took Mrs. Pitman to task for

the condition of her ash barrels, we have been subject to a weak-kneed

and guilty sensation when she gives us an introduction of this sort.

“You probably know,” she continued in more colloquial style, “the

small house with pointed gables and a piazza, fronting the common

next the old Benjamin place. You are aware how neatly it has always

been kept by former occupants. That house is just rented by a doctor

who has come here with his wife, I am told, from New York. They

moved in a week ago, and in that short space of time,--_one week_,

ladies,--they have made the premises a blot upon the scutcheon of our

lovely village. Their packing-cases were unloaded on the piazza in a

high wind, and bits of paper, excelsior and what not are scattered

from end to end of the yard; boxes, planks, tin cans and other refuse

are piled at one side; the whole appearance of the establishment is

enough to make one _of us_,”--impressively--”avert her head in passing

it. And still the scandal goes on, unabated, from day to day. It is a

moment for immediate action, a moment to be seized by patriotic and

public-spirited women, and the disturbers of our peace of mind made to

feel the necessity of taking immediate steps towards reform. I lay the

case before you, ladies, for suggestions as to prompt aggression.”

There was a suitable pause. Then Miss Withers’ gentle voice piped up.

“This is really a dreadful state of things,” she began mildly. “I

hadn’t noticed it myself, I suppose because”--

“Hadn’t noticed it!” ejaculated the president, in tones of thunder.

“I was going to say,” fluttered Miss Maria hurriedly, “because I

haven’t passed there in two weeks. If I had, no doubt I should have

been very much annoyed about it.”

“_Annoyed!_” exclaimed Mrs. Bunker again, savagely. “Annoyance is

altogether too personal a term. It arouses all _my_ loyalty to the

society; that’s the way it impresses _me_.”

Of course this brought forth many protestations of the same sentiment

from the rest of us. Then Mrs. Pitman ventured to ask if Mrs. Bunker

didn’t think it would be well to send a committee to the doctor and ask

him to “clear up a little.”

“The chair has no thoughts, Mrs. Pitman,” answered that body loftily.

“I await a motion.”

I always second everybody else’s motion, but have never made one yet,

in the meetings. Miss Scrapson, however, came to the fore, and it was

presently decided that the president should appoint a committee to

visit the doctor and his lady and reprove them.

“If that is really the pleasure of the Association,” said Mrs. Bunker,

with a wave of her purple ostrich plume, “I will appoint Miss Allison”

(that is my name), “a committee of one to call at the doctor’s house

for this purpose. As you are one of the young ladies of the place,

Irene, it would be in the way of your social duty at any rate. You can

mingle business with pleasure.”

“Yes,--but Mrs. Bunker, I never _could_ mingle things! Don’t ask me to

go,” I implored. “I’m sure I shall make a failure of it. I don’t want

to offend them, you know,--they may be nice people.”

“_Nice people!_” Mrs. Bunker compressed her lips into that peculiar

stiff smile which means scorn, and closed her eyes slowly with her head

tilted back.

“They certainly must be lax,” murmured Miss Scrapson,--”very lax.”

Nobody, however, came to my rescue. I was evidently doomed to be the

unhappy instrument of the Society’s revenge. I gave in and took my

instructions as meekly as I could.

“The wife has an extremely youthful and inexperienced air,” said my

mentor, “and undoubtedly needs a little judicious instruction. It will

alarm her less to be confronted by a person of her own age. Our work is

largely educational, you know, so do not antagonize her. Simply say to

her something of this kind in gentle but firm tones: ‘My dear madam, do

you not appreciate the beauty of this peaceful little village, and will

you not bear your part henceforward in the maintenance of its order and

symmetry?’ Such a method of speech would be better than to alarm her.

And yet don’t fail to impress upon her that disorder simply _cannot

be_.”

I acquiesced, with a slightly strangling sound, which the president did

not notice, fortunately. It resulted from physical distress of a kind

which is sometimes on these occasions, beyond control. It was with me

yet, in a milder form, as I ascended the doctor’s steps that afternoon,

card-case in hand, which last appendage seemed the most despicable

mockery.

The house was a neat, smart little affair in its way, inartistic, but

not aggressively ugly, and well arranged for professional purposes.

The sign, _Dr. M. H. Richmond_, was tacked up beside the door. There

certainly were evidences of an upheaval, however, in plain sight. The

front yard was, as Mrs. Bunker had described it, littered with papers

and excelsior, the piazza floor as bad. At the side of the house was a

pile of tin cans, boxes, broken china and other unsightly abominations.

Somehow one could not help feeling that a woman’s eye and touch were

wanting, and I found myself stiffening against the wife who could allow

such a state of affairs to go on. My primmest expression was ready, as

the door flew open, swung hospitably wide by a big young man with a

short brown beard and gray eyes. The moment I saw him it occurred to

me to wonder what he would take me for--patient, caller, or perhaps

an agent! Horrible thought, that last,--I found a certain timidity

threatening my assurance.

“Might I,” I began, putting myself into the latter category at once by

my mode of address, “might I see the lady of the house, please?”

“Walk in, won’t you?” said the doctor affably, ushering me into what

happened to be his office. Ah,--one knew now a little better where

one was. Whatever its exterior shortcomings, this must be the home of

thoroughly cultivated people. Their furniture was solid, their pictures

were fine, and their few decorations faultless.

As to their books, filling all available space, no library critic could

find the selection wanting in true literary discrimination. I felt the

courage of my mission diminishing as I slid into a leather covered arm

chair opposite the easy, amused looking doctor.

“I’m so very sorry,” he observed, “that she isn’t at home. She went

away by the early train this morning; but perhaps you could leave a

message with me if it’s a matter of importance.”

There was a short but awkward pause. No help for it,--I might as

well make the plunge. The more Bunkerish I could be, the better, if

any stern message was to be sent to the wife by this good-natured

personage.

“I wanted to see Mrs. Richmond,” I explained stiffly, “on a little

matter of business connected with the work of the Village Improvement

Society. It was reported at our last meeting that the condition of your

front yard is very bad.”

“My front yard! I see.” The doctor looked quizzical but serene, and

glanced out over his shoulder to the lawn.

“Our Association,” I continued bravely, “aims to incite the pride of

householders in the appearance of the village as well as in their own

homes; and your place here is conspicuous, facing the common as it

does. We thought that might not have occurred to you.”

“It really hadn’t,” smiled my host. “This is very kind of you, however.

Do I understand that your Society orders me, through you, to clear up

the yard? In that case, do they provide cleaners and so forth,--or will

they perhaps come and take charge of it themselves?”

“Not at all,” I exclaimed angrily. “You are expected to attend to it.”

“What should you do,” he inquired suavely, “if I left it in disorder? I

ask from curiosity, naturally, as I should never have the temerity to

defy so august a body. Would the law be obliged to take its course?”

“You are probably aware that we have no law whatever behind us,” I

said with all the dignity I could assume, “though the selectmen are

very good about backing us up in flagrant cases. But I should imagine

a doctor just settling in a town would be sufficiently alive to his

own interests to see the propriety of making a good impression by the

appearance of his house and grounds.”

“Ah!” He nodded slowly, smiling in a way which maddened me. “Now I

see. This is a special kindness on your part. How grateful I am to

you. Your suggestion may really result in my winning the hearts of the

West Hedgeworth people; and I shall begin at once. The propriety of

making a good impression by the appearance of my house and grounds!--it

is a noble sentiment. My colored boy who is my only servant, shall

attend to the matter, and the Village Improvement Society shall see a

change indeed. Are there any other little touches,--extra touches, you

know,--that occur to you?”

I glanced at the big, low table with its littering of attractive books

and magazines, a great ivory club of a paper knife lying across an

uncut review. I was as much at home among those things as he. Why had

I been forced into the attitude of an impertinent village miss, to be

laughed over with his wife again in the way he was laughing now? The

idea was distressing; but I had no defence.

“I think you are quite capable of arranging your own yard,” I said

curtly. “You will very soon find out what the village people like. All

that our Association requires is cleanliness and good order;”--with

which I moved towards the door, murmuring a regret that I had not seen

Mrs. Richmond.

“This is so good of you”--and now the doctor actually showed a shade of

embarrassment himself,--”that I am really overwhelmed with shame to be

obliged to disappoint you about my wife. It would be so pleasant for

her to know you ladies and to”--he coughed slightly--”to come under

your helpful influence. But the fact is, she isn’t--she doesn’t--there

never has--in short, there isn’t any Mrs. Richmond. My sister came with

me to help me settle things. She is a college girl somewhat younger

than I and with no experience whatever. I hope you will be willing to

welcome her when she comes back in July,--that is, of course, if we

are tidy enough to be recognized by the villagers.” Still the blandest

expression about his mouth, but a twinkle in the gray eyes which made

me grind my teeth. And he had calmly sat there, letting me call on

_him_!

I attempted to “sweep” across the piazza with dignity, but only swept

up little bits of excelsior on the hem of my gown. But I did make him

feel the arrows of a dignified wrath, I think;--not that he evinced any

such sensation at the time. To Mrs. Bunker, who had asked for a prompt

report, I flew. She took the affair with unsympathetic calmness.

“You did your duty, Irene,” was her gracious commendation, “and it was

not your fault that the girl--who certainly was there, for I _saw_

her--should be his sister and not his wife. You said precisely the

right thing, and I trust he will profit by it and earn the respect of

the village. I am glad he is a young man of taste.”

He got on, whether possessed of taste or not. It annoyed me to see the

way he made friends with everybody who crossed his path, man, woman or

child. They were rather slow to consult him professionally; but Doctor

Bell, the old physician who had all the practice round here, lives at

Hedgeworth Centre, three miles away, so when Miss Phœbe Withers,

Miss Maria’s older sister, had an attack of heart failure one day, they

sent for Doctor Richmond, and took a tremendous fancy to him. I kept

out of his way; to my mind he was the most thoroughly disagreeable man

I ever met.

The front yard, meanwhile, had been cleared up. Nick, the black

imp who drove, cooked and gardened for the doctor, was known to be

mysteriously occupied behind the house for hours at a time, after the

rubbish was removed. Mrs. Benjamin saw it all from her back windows,

and reported it at the sewing society. He spent hours pottering among

paint-cans, starting seeds and what not; and shortly after, the front

fence appeared painted grass green, the gate picked out with white

cross-bars, and the lamp-post similarly decorated, bearing a brand-new

reflector. Then clam-shell borders to the gravel-walk cropped out, and

two round clam-edged beds of geraniums stared from the lawn, while a

“rockery” of red and blue boulders, with ferns, reared itself where

the piles of tin cans had been.

“Do you like _that_ sort of thing, I want to know?” I inquired

wrathfully of Mrs. Bunker at our next Village Improvement meeting.

“Well, it looks perfectly neat,” she answered, “and it is in the style

of most of the best kept yards here. I can’t say that _I_ should not

prefer quieter colors; but he is a young man yet, you know.”

I was silenced. What right had I, any way, to feel as if there were a

sort of practical joke on me, personally, in all this? The day after,

a new ornament appeared;--a pair of andirons, painted scarlet, and

a hollowed out log across them filled with yellow nasturtiums. Mrs.

Pitman pointed it out to me delightedly.

“Just like a real fire!” she said. “Do you see, Irene? The doctor is

quite a landscape gardener, isn’t he?” I made no reply.

Another decoration was set forth next, on the opposite side of the

yard;--this time a crane, also of scarlet hue, and a swinging pot, with

money-wort bubbling in it and dribbling down the sides. By ill luck I

was passing at the moment when Nick put it there, turning round with a

grin for the approval of his master, who stood in the window.

“Very good, indeed, Nick,” I heard the doctor call out. “You’re a

regular Village Improvement Society in yourself, boy.” I wondered

if it were possible, by Delsartian methods, to throw scorn into

the expression of one’s back. The attempt ended weakly in one of

those little conscious adjustments of drapery to which one resorts

involuntarily at such junctures. Somehow I felt that those gray eyes

were upon me. I had occasionally caught the expression of them before,

always with the inevitable twinkle, when we met in public.

He grew into the habit of dropping in at the Bunkers’, to my disgust,

as it spoiled my own intimacy there. Mr. B., a shadowy figure in the

background of the family stage, had been cured, or imagined he had, of

rheumatism by the new physician, and took a great fancy to him. Emily,

the daughter, who is so fearfully quiet that most people never make

any attempt to rouse her, was actually known to chat with him quite

naturally and easily; and our beloved president submitted to cruel

thrusts from him with a good grace.

“Mrs. Bunker,” he said one evening as we were all sitting on the

piazza in a June twilight, “you’ve never told me yet how you liked the

arrangement of my front yard. Have you seen the new garden seat I had

put out this week? It’s one of the latest fads in outdoor decoration,

made of the head-board and frame of an antique bedstead--a very choice

thing. I got the idea from a farmhouse up on the north road.”

“I haven’t noticed it,” she answered somewhat cautiously, “but I

observe, doctor, that you have an idea of falling in with the taste of

the people.”

“My dear madam,” he clasped his hand round one knee and looked off

dreamily into space,--”a doctor just settling down in a town should be

sufficiently alive to his own interests to see the propriety of making

a good impression by the appearance of his house and grounds.”

How dared he mock me to my very face in this fashion? I was thankful

for the little back gate leading out of the Bunkers’ grounds, by

which I could get a short cut home, leaving my good-byes with Emily

Bunker. When we met accidentally at the post-office next morning, I

turned my back on him to stamp some letters, and never looked up till

he was gone, after telling Alice Cobb, one of the village belles, who

stood there, that he was going away in the afternoon to his sister’s

Commencement and would bring her back with him.

The week seemed very peaceful, and I enjoyed going about without the

dread of further shafts of ridicule. I was always planning some way to

give his impertinence a decided snub, but never found the chance. The

afternoon of his return, I was sitting with my work in Mrs. Benjamin’s

parlor as the buggy drove up, Nick having been left to walk home from

the station. When he helped the sister out,--a manifestly high bred,

charming little blonde,--I couldn’t help watching for the effect

upon her of those painted monstrosities. She wouldn’t tolerate them

a moment, I felt sure. But oh, stab after stab! She gave one glance

at them and turned to her brother with an expression of such utter

merriment that I knew at once the thing was a joke already understood

between the two. I decided that Amy Richmond would _not_ become a

friend of mine. Yet curiously enough she actually sought me out, at an

academy reception the next night. Emily Bunker introduced her, and she

began at once: “I’ve been so anxious to meet you, Miss Allison. Morris

tells me so much about you, and he’s sure we shall be congenial.”

I stiffened. Another back-handed thrust, probably, lay underneath this.

“He thinks I shall learn an immense amount from you, too,” she

pursued,--”don’t you Morris?”--to the doctor, who was unexpectedly

standing behind me.

“I’ve told my sister,” he answered, “that she must persuade you to give

her some hints about household matters. She hasn’t had even as much

experience yet as Nick and I.”

I tried to be very ungracious, as dark suspicions flew through my

mind; but Miss Richmond looked absolutely guileless, and furthermore

she wouldn’t let me alone; there was no use trying to avoid her. And

it _did_ seem good to have a friend of her sort. The West Hedgeworth

girls are bright and pretty, and some of them intellectual, but we had

all been village comrades too long to get up much enthusiasm over one

another’s society. Doctor Richmond’s brotherly devotion caused him to

lend his sister the buggy and spirited little horse for her own use

now and then, besides the drives she took with him; so we two enjoyed

long excursions through the country roads, steeped in July sunshine

and finding our mutual interest deeper with every day. Once I went to

tea with them, and on that occasion the doctor seemed quite like other

people, except just as I was leaving under the escort of my younger

brother, which I had purposely arranged, the temptation to give me a

parting thrust was too strong for him, and he remarked as we descended

the front steps: “Miss Allison, I am so glad to have had you get a

glimpse of our clam-shells in the moonlight.”

Amy went off to the seashore a day or two later, and I felt really

sorry for him, but it was much the easiest way to avoid him altogether,

and I never asked him to come to our house, nor crossed his path if

I could help it. As for the nasturtiums and geraniums, scorching on

his lawn in the midsummer heat, I wanted no sight of them. By and

by I went away myself, and came back in September to a taste of the

unpleasantnesses of life. My two brothers left home, one to a business

position in Boston, the other to college. Father, meanwhile, who for

eight years since mother’s death had been lost in melancholy and

required my constant offices as consoler, divulged the fact that a

buxom widow in Hedgeworth Centre had succeeded in resurrecting his

buried affections; an individual as utterly unlike--well, there was a

sting about it all that made things look pretty black for awhile, and

since they desired the engagement “kept quiet,” I locked up my woes and

could only wonder now and then whether anybody felt any sympathy, while

parrying the usual village questions about father’s frequent drives to

the Centre. The Bunkers went abroad for the winter, thank Heaven!--and

the V. I. S. was suspended for the time being. Mercifully I had a

chance to do something for somebody else. Aunt Abby, my mother’s

sister, who had lived alone with her servants in a big house fronting

the common, a rather morose and unmanageable old maiden lady, was

breaking down. My other aunt, who lives in California, could not come

east at once, so I was the only member of the family to nurse her, and

with father and the boys provided for I had time to go to her whenever

she needed me.

Dr. Bell fell ill and Dr. Richmond was called. His appearance in the

sick-room seemed likely to destroy the only comfort I had there; but,

strange to say, I laid down my weapons before three visits were over.

His management of her was absolutely perfect; thoughtful, gentle,

cheery, and so patient with her whims and imaginings, poor old soul,

that his coming grew to be the one bright spot in her life, and I

fancied she would give herself up to complete invalidism for the sake

of them. But he looked grave one day over her, and informed me she must

have a nurse.

“Do you think me incapable?” I asked rather sharply.

“No, but you couldn’t hold out to do all there is to be done. Your aunt

is going to be worse, Miss Allison, and I doubt if we can pull her

through. You’ll want somebody for night work.”

Mrs. Smith, the village nurse, is the dreariest of her kind, and brings

an atmosphere of melancholy with her. My services were needed as

cheerer-up from this time on, for poor Aunt Abby grew visibly weaker,

and finally one stormy night the end seemed near, so I did not go home.

Dr. Richmond came in about nine o’clock and found me in the cold, lofty

parlor with its straight backed furniture and grim family portraits.

“See here,” he remarked as he returned from the sick-room, “mightn’t

you be a little more comfortable somehow? You can’t sit up all night on

the edge of a slippery sofa like that. Why don’t you doze, and let the

nurse call if she wants you?”

I had unconsciously taken the attitude of my childhood’s years, when

sent to call on Aunt Abby and charged not to let my feet touch the

furniture, my hands crossed in my lap, and spine rigid. But I couldn’t

have slept at any rate, I told him, and should manage all right.

He opened the front door to depart, then came back. A West Indian

tornado was tearing at the house and lashing the trees with howls

of fury, the chimneys moaning and blinds rattling. He looked at me

irresolutely, I sitting motionless. What did a mere storm matter,--a

tumult of nature which would be over by morning? _He_ might object to

it, with nothing worse to worry about; it made no difference to me.

“I must be on hand every hour, anyway,” he said slowly, “to watch your

aunt’s pulse. Neither you nor the nurse would understand it. If you

don’t mind, I’ll stay here, instead of coming back and forth across the

common in such a gale as this. And meanwhile let me show you a better

way to rest.”

Poor Aunt Abby! It was fortunate that she could not see her plush sofa

moved around cornerwise and its end filled with pillows, nor the logs

which the doctor brought from the cellar piled across her beautifully

polished, unused andirons. Had I any business to sink back luxuriously

and enjoy the sparkle and warmth of a fire, with that unconscious

figure in the next room? I sprang up again and tiptoed in to ask the

nurse if I might not take her place.

“No,” said Mrs. Smith dolorously but firmly, “you ain’t experienced

enough to watch out her last hours. Miss Abby’s been good to me in ways

I sha’n’t say nothin’ about, and I’m a-goin’ to see her through. All I

want you for is to call if I need you, and so long as I ain’t all alone

I shall stay up till the last.”

I crept back, feeling incompetent and useless, and with some of the

diminished nerve which results from the nearness and certainty of

death--that hour we are never ready for.

“Lie against the cushions, please,” commanded the doctor quietly.

“Now I’m going to be here and watch every symptom. You won’t have

to keep anything on your mind,--and your aunt may rally, remember,

perhaps even return to consciousness again. Just put the responsibility

entirely on Mrs. Smith and me, and try to rest as much as you can.”

There was no resisting this; he should not see, however, that my eyes

grew moist under the unwonted sensation of being looked out for. I

turned my head away to pull my forces together, but he had gone back

to Aunt Abby’s bedside. When he came out, in about five minutes, he

told me that all was going well, and then sitting down began to speak

of everyday matters. Before very long a better footing was established

between us than ever before, and for a couple of hours we talked, only

interrupted by visits to the sick-room. I forgot my secret smart at

having been ridiculed, in hearing Morris Richmond tell delightful bits

of his own experiences and life interest. Not being enough of a woman

of the world to resist the delicate flattery which such a recital

implies, I didn’t suspect him either of adroitness enough to use his

autobiography for that purpose. But about twelve o’clock he looked at

his watch, then at me, and frowned.

“You’re horribly tired,” he said, “and I’ve no business to keep you

up when it isn’t necessary. Please go upstairs to bed, and sleep till

four o’clock. I shall be here till then, and there will be absolutely

nothing for you to do. If your aunt is improving, you needn’t be called

till seven, for you can take Mrs. Smith’s place to-morrow, and Mrs.

Benjamin will come over to help you if you need her.”

Evidently he himself was tired of talking so long. I didn’t give him

credit for any especially disinterested motives in sending me off,

but went with some resentment, since he so plainly wished me to go.

I didn’t sleep, however. The mirror on the wall of the barren guest

room moved from some hidden draught or jar, the old willow whipped its

twigs against the window panes, and I lay watching them with a strange

tumult in my heart, a whirlwind of whys and conjectures, a creeping

nervousness as to the outcome of the next few hours, a lonely dread

of the after months when Aunt Abby should be gone and my home life

changed,--and yet, through it all, an odd new satisfaction which I

tried to push away, and a tendency to go over word for word the talk

of that evening and the looks on Morris Richmond’s face. There was a

faint dawn in the room before I knew it, and then it occurred to me

that the doctor ought to have a little breakfast after his long vigil.

The servants were asleep, but the kitchen fire had been left “in,” and

I knew where everything was kept. I freshened myself up and stole down

the back stairs to cook coffee and eggs and hot toast. In the midst of

it the door opened behind me, and I started guiltily.

“What are you doing _now_?” he demanded.

“How did you know?” I faltered.

“The smell of that coffee going all through the house is enough to wake

anybody. So this is the way you obey orders! Miss West is better, and I

am just going. You might perfectly well have slept on.”

“But I couldn’t,” I insisted, “and you will stay and drink the coffee

now that I have cooked it.”

He consented if I would have some too, and we ate our impromptu meal in

the dark dining-room, warming up over it and chatting most familiarly.

It was growing light when the doctor took his hat in the hall.

“Thank you for being so good to me,” he said. “I appreciate it. Now

please don’t overdo. I sha’n’t be in again probably until noon, unless

you send for me;”--and he opened the door, where we both stood looking

out. We were just opposite his house. The storm was abating, but the

havoc it had made was visible everywhere. A big elm had been uprooted

on the common, and lay prone, with hundreds of scattered twigs about

it. And the doctor’s front yard? Alas! Mrs. Benjamin’s old buttonwood

tree, which had been dying all summer, was crashed over, burying in

its prostrate branches the crane, the andirons, the gay beds and

all. Nature itself had swept away the last barriers now, I reflected

triumphantly, to what might be a good satisfactory friendship. Better

days were coming. But--

“Whew!” said my companion lightly. “Look over there. Dear me--I must

hurry home and set Nick at work. It will take us a whole week to get

square with the Village Improvement Society!”

Aunt Abby lived nearly a month longer. Her sister came on from

California and took charge in the sick-room with an energy which left

very little for others to do. After the funeral she went away again.

The property had been left to her, the house to me, with just enough

income to live, economically, in it. Father and his affianced bride

were well satisfied with this arrangement, and made preparations to

be married at Thanksgiving, at which time I was to move into my new

abode. I felt it to be following indeed in Aunt Abby’s footsteps, and

could see myself in imagination going on year after year with my one

servant, growing older and grimmer, brooding over past days, finally

slipping out of life without a friend in the world. It was rather a new

thing for me to take this morbid view, but one always finds a fresh

idea interesting, and I hugged it for a time with all the vehemence

of my nature. The doctor I had seen now and then, and we had managed

to remain pretty well on our new basis of easy and even confidential

acquaintanceship. But I could not forget the old grudge; he would not

keep up that spirit of mockery which cropped out so often unless he

regarded me still as a village nonenity. Yet why need I care?

One November afternoon I started out to walk off the blues. It was gray

and windy, but with occasional gleams of sunshine,--a good day for a

hilltop. I went by the Bunkers’ shut up mansion, waved to Miss Maria

at her little corner sitting-room window, shook my head to resist Mrs.

Benjamin’s beckoning hand as I passed her door, and glanced at the

doctor’s yard. It was in order again indeed. The mutilated crane and

andirons had been removed, and the beds emptied and raked over; but a

new horror had been perpetrated in the shape of two brilliant globular

lawn-reflectors on pedestals, one blue-gray, the other yellow, which

gave a miniature distorted panorama of all passing objects and showed

me a waddling image of myself, with flattened, wrathful countenance.

It was the last straw, and I walked fiercely away, resolved that if my

future dwelling must be opposite this man’s, its front blinds should be

lowered forever.

As that walk registered just about the lowest point my mental and

spiritual barometer has ever reached, I can hardly forget it. I climbed

over Hart’s hill, and from its summit looked off westward over level

fields, bounded by a horizon of tossing gray clouds and slits of pale,

yellow light. The old graveyard lay to the right, smooth bare maple

boughs tossed above me. The road ran straight ahead, and I stood

undecided whether to go on down or not. If it had been in a story, I

reflected bitterly, the man I hated yet longed to see would appear then

and there; in real life such things never happen at the right juncture.

I should simply go back, give father his tea, and see him depart as

usual for the evening, then sit alone.

But, after all, this is a story, or I shouldn’t be telling it. A buggy

turned out of the farm-yard half way down the hill, and came toward me.

I knew the horse and occupant, and turned my feet resolutely homeward,

with a confusion in my brain which I thought was anger. A rapid trot

sounded behind me, and then the doctor’s “Whoa!” I did not look up till

I heard him say: “Miss Allison, would you please let me drive you home?”

“I came out for a walk,” I answered.

“Yes, but you’ve had the walk. And besides that, you are more by

yourself nowadays than is good for you.” What business was it of

his?--”Then, best of all, I have a letter from Amy to read you.”

“Oh, I don’t suppose it matters,” said I, climbing wearily in beside

him, “only please have the goodness _not_ to drive me past your house.

The prospect of looking at it morning, noon and night hereafter is bad

enough since this latest infliction.”

“Infliction! do you really think so?” he asked, with the old merriment

in his voice. “But I had to put something there, you know, to brighten

it up a little. You certainly would have me sufficiently alive to my

own interests as a physician, wouldn’t you, to see the propriety--”

“Stop!” I burst out, my cheeks one flame and the hot tears of tired-out

nerves and pent-up anger springing to my eyes. “Be kind enough to

understand that for your interests as a physician I don’t care one

straw!”

The Doctor turned and laid his hand gently on mine, looking down at me

with a smile which levelled all my fortifications.

“Of course you don’t,” he said. “But as a man--you surely must have

seen by this time how badly I need a wife! Won’t you come home and take

command of my front yard?”

RUTH HUNTINGTON SESSIONS.

XXI

A GENTLE MANIAC.

A STUDY IN LOVE AND INSANITY.

CHARACTERS.

MR. VALDINGAM.

HENRY VAN HYDE, M. D.

SUSAN VALDINGAM.

ROSE.

RICHARD, a servant.

TIME: Present.

PLACE: Mr. Valdingam’s country place near New York.

SCENE: _Library in Mr. Valdingam’s house. At the right of

the stage, there is a large window opening upon a veranda and garden;

moonlight effect. At the left there is an exit to other parts of the

house._

MR. VALDINGAM (_who is pacing the room restlessly_): Dr. Van

Hyde is extremely inconsiderate--extremely inconsiderate. He promised

to be here at six-thirty sharp. A physician should keep his word at all

hazards. (_He goes to his desk at right and rings a bell._)

(_Enter_ RICHARD _from_ LEFT.)

RICHARD: You rang, sir?

MR. VALDINGAM (_testily_): When does the next train leave for

New York?

RICHARD: In a half hour, sir.

MR. VALDINGAM: Good. If Dr. Van Hyde does not arrive within

that time, you will take the train and fetch him. Do you understand?

RICHARD: Yes, sir.

MR. VALDINGAM: Meanwhile, tell my sister that I want to speak

with her. (_Exit_ RICHARD, L.) Now I’ll surprise that excellent

woman; excellent, that is to say, if she possessed an ounce of

brains. If _she_ could have her way, Rose would soon be in a

lunatic asylum.

(_Enter_ SUSAN, L.)

SUSAN (_curtly_): You have something to say to me?

MR. VALDINGAM (_sharply_): Get ready a supper for two--for

_two_--do you hear?

SUSAN: For two?

MR. VALDINGAM: And you can serve it in this room.

SUSAN: You are expecting a friend?

MR. VALDINGAM: Yes, a friend; or, rather a physician--a

physician ... for Rose.

SUSAN (_aside_): The same old delusion (_To_ MR.

VALDINGAM.) But, brother, Rose is quite well.

MR. VALDINGAM: Well! You say _well_!... It’s none of your

business, however. Do as I bid.

SUSAN (_aside_): It’s useless to argue with him. (_To_ MR.

VALDINGAM.) When do you expect your--friend?

MR. VALDINGAM: By the train that was due several minutes ago.

Late, as usual.

(_Enter_ RICHARD, L.)

RICHARD: The doctor has just arrived, sir.

MR. VALDINGAM: Good. Bring the lamps, and then show the doctor

in.

SUSAN (_aside_): That doctor may be useful, after all.

(_Exeunt_ RICHARD _and_ SUSAN.)

MR. VALDINGAM (_exultingly_): Ha! I’ve gained my point, in

spite of them. Rose shall be saved.

(_Enter_, L., RICHARD, _with two lighted lamps.

After placing them, he retires, leaving_ DR. VAN HYDE _in the

background_.)

DR. VAN HYDE: This is Mr. Valdingam?

MR. VALDINGAM: And this Dr. Van Hyde? How delighted I am to

meet you at last! But it is disgraceful that you should have been so

long delayed. I shall see to it that the officers of the road are

severely censured.

DR. VAN HYDE: Pray do not worry over such a trifle.

MR. VALDINGAM: That is very nicely said, sir.... As I informed

you by letter, the case which you are about to treat is a very serious

one--a very complicated one. It may even baffle you.... But before

I add anything, permit me to see my sister for an instant. She is

preparing a little supper for us, and, if you don’t object, we shall

eat it here, _tête-à-tête_.

DR. VAN HYDE: With the greatest pleasure, Mr. Valdingam.

MR. VALDINGAM: Then kindly make yourself at home. The house is

yours while you are in it. (_Exit_ MR. VALDINGAM, L.)

DR. VAN HYDE (_throwing himself into an easychair_): A

comfortable place, certainly. That fellow, Valdingam, however, is

an odd chap. Restless and excitable, I take it; but very agreeable,

otherwise. I wonder what sort of a little creature the patient

is, by the way. A stupid thing, I suppose.... (_After a moment of

reflection_.) Strange!--I wonder if I am losing my own mind. For three

days I’ve been in a state which is positively abnormal. I am haunted

by a face, and I can’t rid my memory of it. And what a face! Who could

forget it after having once looked upon it? I am in love with it. I

am still more in love with its owner. That smile, like a glimpse of

paradise! That mouth, like a dissected strawberry! That blush, like the

stolen red of a rose! Oh, shall I ever see her again?

(_Enter_ MR. VALDINGAM, L.)

MR. VALDINGAM: You must be hungry, Dr. Van Hyde, and I fear

that I can offer you little to appease a healthy appetite--a bowl of

broth, a tender bit of broiled chicken, and some of the finest Burgundy

in the world to wash it down. We homely folk of the country stick to

the ancient fashions, you know,--a noonday lunch, and all that.

DR. VAN HYDE: I like your ancient fashions, as you call them,

Mr. Valdingam. (_Enter_ RICHARD, _who sets a small table for

two and serves supper_.)

MR. VALDINGAM: Then let us sit down without ceremony.

DR. VAN HYDE: Your Burgundy is indeed delicious, Mr. Valdingam.

MR. VALDINGAM: I flatter myself that it is. It dissolves

the cobwebs from one’s brains, so to speak. It is the elixir of

happiness; and alas! I am not a happy man, Dr. Van Hyde.... (_To_

RICHARD.) Leave us alone, Richard. (_Exit_ RICHARD.)

DR. VAN HYDE: Perhaps you exaggerate your misfortunes, my dear

sir.

MR. VALDINGAM: Far from it--far from it.... Imagine a father,

a doting father, like myself, whose only child is on the verge of

insanity.

DR. VAN HYDE: It is a pitiful case, truly.

MR. VALDINGAM: It is pitiful, and it is strange; strange

because my daughter Rose is, to all outward appearances, as sane as you

or I.

DR. VAN HYDE: But there are symptoms--

MR. VALDINGAM: Symptoms which my keen sight discovered long

ago. (_Mysteriously._) My daughter is morally irresponsible in her

social relations with men.

DR. VAN HYDE: You astonish me!

MR. VALDINGAM: Prepare yourself for still greater

astonishment. Accustomed though you are to dealings with the insane, I

venture to say that Rose will deceive you at first as she has deceived

others.... However, you are now on your guard. If you will permit me to

do so, I will indicate to you the line of inquiry which you may adopt

in your preliminary examination of my daughter.

(_As this conversation progresses the door at_ L. _is opened

slightly, and_ SUSAN _is seen to be listening. Later she

closes the door softly and disappears._)

DR. VAN HYDE: With pleasure, sir.

MR. VALDINGAM: Here is the point, then. My daughter appears to

fall in love with every young man that strikes her fancy.

DR. VAN HYDE: Really--

MR. VALDINGAM: She may even fall in love with you.

DR. VAN HYDE: Extraordinary!

MR. VALDINGAM: Your course, therefore, will be to draw from

her some decisive manifestation of this abnormal amativeness. You will

not be slow to discover how deep-rooted the disease is.... By the way,

would you object to meeting my daughter this evening? I shall not allow

you to return to New York to-night, you know.

DR. VAN HYDE: I am wholly at your service.

MR. VALDINGAM (_ringing for_ RICHARD): So much the

better. (_Enter_ RICHARD, _who removes the dining table_.)

Now, if you will join me in a cigar and a stroll in the garden, we

can talk more at our ease on this painful subject. (_They light their

cigars and pass out into the garden. Enter from_ L. _at the

same time_ SUSAN, _followed by_ ROSE.)

SUSAN: Well, what do you think of that?

ROSE (_laughingly_): I am very sorry for poor Dr. Van Hyde.

Suppose I should be attacked with a tender passion for him, after all.

SUSAN: Don’t be ridiculous, Rose. Between you and me, however,

it seems to me that this mad-doctor here, who is said to be so very

clever, might be turned to some good purpose. I begin to think that

your father needs looking after.

ROSE: Oh, papa is harmless. At any rate, wait awhile. At

present, you must remember, I am Dr. Van Hyde’s patient.

SUSAN: Nonsense!

ROSE: I intend that he shall practise on me, certainly,

especially if, as you assert, he is young and handsome. Or, let us say,

I will experiment on him.

SUSAN: You are out of your senses.

ROSE: Not a bit. Has not Dr. Van Hyde come all the way up here

to see _me_, to examine _me_? Shall I disappoint this luminary of the

medical profession?... Never!... Now, Aunt Susan, you must let me have

my own way this time. No harm shall come of it, I promise you. And who

knows? Perhaps I may be able to give Dr. Van Hyde points for his next

clinic.

SUSAN: Well, do as you please. But I fear the worst. More than

one sane creature has been clapped into a lunatic asylum by some fool

of a doctor.

ROSE: Tell me something more about this Dr. Van Hyde.

SUSAN: I’ve told you all I know ... young, handsome, and, I

doubt not, a gentleman; very pleasant mannered, so far as I could see.

ROSE (_musingly_): Young, handsome, pleasant mannered. Not the

traditional doctor, evidently; just such a doctor as I might naturally

fall in love with.

SUSAN: Rose, you amaze me!

ROSE: But I am not going to fall in love with him.... (_After

a pause, and mischievously._) Indeed, I have some one else in my

thought at this moment.

SUSAN: What do you mean?

ROSE: Don’t blame me if I am a little human. Have you never

met a man, Aunt Susan, who pleased you as no other man had ever pleased

you before?

SUSAN: Perhaps I have; but it was mighty long ago.

ROSE: Call me foolish if you will; I, too, have met such a man.

SUSAN: You! Where?

ROSE: You won’t be cross if I confide in you? Besides, it’s

not likely that I shall meet my Romeo again?--for he was a Romeo, Aunt

Susan.

SUSAN: There are no Romeos nowadays.

ROSE: Oh, yes, there are--in trousers. Now, let me tell you

my experience with him. It was not a bit romantic. Last Monday, as you

remember, I was shopping in New York. To-day is Friday. (_With mock

gravity._) An eternity from then till now.... Well, as I was rushing

through a quiet side street, in haste to catch a car, suddenly I

slipped and fell. My parasol went in one direction, my fan in another,

my purse in still another, and three parcels I was carrying in three

others. To make matters worse, I had sprained my ankle slightly, and

was ready to cry with pain and mortification. Imagine the situation,

Aunt Susan. There I sat in a heap on the pavement, surrounded by my

possessions.

SUSAN (_grimly_): I hope you didn’t sit there long?

ROSE: How unsympathetic you are!... No, I did not sit there

long. For a second I was paralyzed. Afterward, as I prepared to rise

with proper dignity, I heard a man’s voice--a particularly agreeable

man’s voice--close at my side. It said: “Permit me to assist you,

madam.” Before I could reply, the owner of the voice lifted me to my

feet. Oh, he did his part gallantly! I was, of course, too confused to

thank him at once. But he did not stop for thanks. He simply picked

up my purse, my parasol, and my parcels, and after placing them in my

hands, and inquiring very gently whether I was hurt, lifted his hat

courteously and passed on. Only for a single--a single instant, Aunt

Susan, our eyes met.

SUSAN: What then, pray?

ROSE: Nothing. I limped to the car. That’s all.

SUSAN: And this stranger is your Romeo! Rose, you are a goose.

Put him out of your head.

ROSE: How can I put him out when he persists in staying in?

There, now you have my story.

SUSAN (_starting at the sound of footsteps_): Hush! I think

your father and the doctor are coming back.

(_Susan busies herself with one of the lamps at_ L., _and Rose

takes up a book and pretends to read. Her face is turned away from the_

RIGHT _entrance. Enter_ MR. VALDINGAM _and_ DR.

VAN HYDE.)

MR. VALDINGAM: Doctor, I rely upon you now with the utmost

confidence. What a knowledge is yours! How vast, how intricate a

subject is this of insanity! I marvel that you should have learned

so much in so few years. I’ll wager that you have not passed your

thirty-fifth birthday.

DR. VAN HYDE: You have made a nearly correct guess, Mr. Mr

Valdingam. I am in my thirty-sixth year. But I have enjoyed unusual

experience.

(_At the sound of_ DR. VAN HYDE’S _voice, Rose half-rises, then

hides her face with her book_.)

ROSE (_aside_): Good gracious! I have heard that voice before.

(_She glances over the edge of the book toward the two men._) It is

he. (_She slips out of her chair, and joins Susan. The backs of the

two women are turned to the men, who are conversing sotto voce._) Aunt

Susan!

SUSAN (_starting_): What’s the matter?

ROSE: It is he.

SUSAN: He? Who’s he?

ROSE: The same.

SUSAN: Who’s the same?

ROSE: The doctor.

SUSAN: What of the doctor?

ROSE: The doctor is--Romeo!

SUSAN (_dropping the book which_ ROSE _had passed to

her_): Lord!

(_At the sound of the book falling_, MR. VALDINGAM _turns and

perceives the two women. Then he catches_ DR. VAN HYDE _by the

arm_.)

MR. VALDINGAM (_to the doctor_): She is here. Prepare yourself.

DR. VAN HYDE (_glancing at the backs of the women_): Your

daughter?

MR. VALDINGAM: Yes, my daughter. A splendid opportunity for

you, doctor. I will see to it that you are left alone with her. Talk

to her. Watch her closely. Discover all you can. But first, I will

introduce you to her. (_He goes over to_ L., _while_ DR. VAN HYDE

_stays quietly at_ R. _He approaches his daughter._) Rose!

ROSE (_turning toward_ MR. VALDINGAM): Yes, papa.

MR. VALDINGAM: May I introduce to you a dear, a very old

friend of mine.

ROSE (_aside_): A very old friend! (_To_ MR.

VALDINGAM.) Certainly, papa.

(_She advances toward center of stage._ SUSAN _glares at_

MR. VALDINGAM, _but does not come forward_.)

MR. VALDINGAM (_to_ DR. VAN HYDE): Doctor!

DR. VAN HYDE (_advancing toward Rose_): At your service, Mr.

Valdingam.

MR. VALDINGAM: May I introduce--

(_At this instant_, DR. VAN HYDE _obtains a full view

of_ ROSE, _who regards him demurely. He stumbles back in

amazement._)

DR. VAN HYDE: This--this--is your daughter?

MR. VALDINGAM: You appear surprised? (_Aside._) I knew it. I

knew it.

DR. VAN HYDE: Not surprised--but--

MR. VALDINGAM: I understand thoroughly. (_Aside to the

doctor._) Didn’t I tell you so? (_To_ ROSE.) Rose, this is my

friend, Dr. Van Hyde. For certain reasons, my child, he is anxious to

have a little chat with you.

ROSE (_innocently_): With me, papa?

MR. VALDINGAM: That is to say.... Well, no matter, I will explain

later. (_Turning to_ SUSAN.) Susan! (SUSAN _advances toward center

very stiffly_.) Dr. Van Hyde, this is my sister, Miss Valdingam.

(DR. VAN HYDE _bows to_ SUSAN _in an embarrassed

manner_.)

SUSAN: Glad to know you, sir.

(_She retires to_ L., _accompanied by_ ROSE. MR.

VALDINGAM _rejoins_ DR. VAN HYDE _at_ R.)

MR. VALDINGAM (_to_ DR. VAN HYDE): Did I not manage

that skilfully?

DR. VAN HYDE (_dryly_): Most skilfully.

MR. VALDINGAM: The rest is simple enough. Remain where you

are, and I will retire with Susan. Then you will have the field to

yourself. Do you agree with me?

DR. VAN HYDE: Perfectly.

(MR. VALDINGAM _goes over to_ L., _consults in an

undertone with_ SUSAN, _and then exeunt_ MR. VALDINGAM

_and_ SUSAN _at_ L. DR. VAN HYDE _and_

ROSE _are thus left alone. Their backs are turned to each

other._)

ROSE (_aside_): He recognized me.

DR. VAN HYDE (_aside_): I wonder if she recognized me.

ROSE (_aside_): What shall I do--play the mad woman?

DR. VAN HYDE (_aside_): This, then, is the end of my dream. I

have fallen in love with a lunatic.

ROSE (_aside_): I suppose, to carry out papa’s wishes, that I

ought to make love to him.

DR. VAN HYDE (_aside_): How did she come to be alone in the

city last Monday? She must have escaped somehow. She is guarded with

too little caution.

ROSE (_aside_): Why doesn’t he speak?

DR. VAN HYDE (_aside_): She is more enchanting than ever. How

can so sweet a creature be condemned to such misery? (_He turns and

confronts_ ROSE.) Miss Valdingam!

ROSE (_without moving_): Yes?

DR. VAN HYDE (_more softly_): Miss Valdingam!

ROSE (_turning slowly, and half looking at him_): Dr. Van Hyde!

DR. VAN HYDE: Will you not sit down?

ROSE: Thank you, I will. (_She seats herself at_ L.)

DR. VAN HYDE (_still standing, and speaking gravely_): Now--

ROSE (_carelessly_): Oh, you may as well take a chair yourself.

DR. VAN HYDE (_seating himself at_ L.): With your

permission.

ROSE: Well?

DR. VAN HYDE: I was saying--

ROSE: Were you? I didn’t hear it.

DR. VAN HYDE: I was, rather, about to say--

ROSE (_laughing_): This is very odd, is it not?

DR. VAN HYDE: What, may I ask, is odd?

ROSE: This _tête-à-tête_.

DR. VAN HYDE: Professionally speaking--

ROSE: As a rule, you know, it takes two old friends to make a

_tête-à-tête_. Now, it must be admitted that we are not old friends,

are we?

DR. VAN HYDE: I trust that we shall be very good friends soon.

ROSE: Oh, my father has recommended you, and I may accept you

on that basis. Are you from New York?

DR. VAN HYDE: Yes.

ROSE: And you are a physician?

DR. VAN HYDE: I practice a little.

ROSE: I suppose papa is to be one of your patients. He has not

been strong. How is he, doctor?

DR. VAN HYDE (_aside_): She is very insistent.

ROSE: Why don’t you answer me? Is there some serious

complication?

DR. VAN HYDE (_hurriedly_): Nothing serious, I assure you....

In fact, I have had no conversation with Mr. Valdingam about his health.

ROSE: Then what about?... Oh, I forgot. You are very old

friends.

DR. VAN HYDE: Very old friends. (_Aside._) There is a strange

gleam in her eyes. Poor thing! Poor thing!

ROSE: It is singular that he had never spoken of you before

to-night.... (_After a pause of reflection._) Do you know, I feel that

you called to see _me_, as well as papa. Am I right?

DR. VAN HYDE: Partly right, Miss Valdingam.... And I am _very_

glad to have met you at last. I have heard so much about you.

ROSE: Still, you had never _seen_ me until this evening?

DR. VAN HYDE (_taken by surprise_): Oh, I had.... (_Aside._)

What a silly business I am making of this! She looks so perfectly

sane and charming that I am tempted to forget my mission. (_To_

ROSE.) It seemed to me almost, I mean, that I had met you--I

don’t know where.

ROSE (_aside_): This is delicious. I must punish him.

(_Advancing toward him with an air of anger._) Sir, I perceive that you

wish to mislead me. Your presence here has a professional object. Do

not deny it.

DR. VAN HYDE: I--I--do not deny it.

ROSE (_tragically_): Connected with myself?

DR. VAN HYDE (_aside_): Suspicious of a stranger! Restless

under medical observation! These are symptoms!... I must try to divert

her thoughts.

ROSE: I repeat, sir--connected with myself?

DR. VAN HYDE: Pray, Miss Valdingam, do not excite yourself.

ROSE: Conceal nothing! I am wretched, annoyed, persecuted.

I am under a wicked surveillance. Do you imagine that I’m blind?

I understand their plot. (_Pointing to door at_ L.) And

you, too, are in the plot. But I shall prove to you--at once, _at

once_--that I am as rational as they, as you. (_In a quieter tone._)

Now, have you any questions to ask me?

DR. VAN HYDE (_somewhat confused_): Do not take the matter

so seriously, Miss Valdingam. Even a rational person--not excepting

myself--may have theories, hallucinations, dreams--

ROSE (_wildly_): Dreams! I have astonishing dreams, doctor.

They come to me when I am awake, when I _seem_ to be awake. Strange

noises then rattle in my brain, and I grow dizzy. In any other person,

these dreams might be _ideas_.... At other times, the world of my fancy

is crowded with men, myriads of men.

DR. VAN HYDE (_aside_): Her father was not mistaken.

ROSE: Yes, young men; graceful men; men who flatter and adore

me!... Totally unlike the men I see when I escape to New York.

DR. VAN HYDE: Ah, she escapes!

ROSE: Then, too, I have visions of matrimony. I feel a wild

desire to propose to every man I meet. Have you ever proposed, doctor?

DR. VAN HYDE: Never.

ROSE: Why don’t you? You can not have lacked opportunity.

DR. VAN HYDE: I fear that I have.

ROSE: You are young, rich, good-looking, and successful.

DR. VAN HYDE (_aside_): Heavens!

ROSE: You should marry.

DR. VAN HYDE: I have not the time--

ROSE: There is no time like the present.... We are alone.

DR. VAN HYDE (_nervously_): Alone?

ROSE: Yes; papa and Aunt Susan were discreet enough to retire.

Do not be afraid.

DR. VAN HYDE: Afraid of what?

ROSE: Of proposing to me. If you are, I will propose to you.

DR. VAN HYDE (_aside_): I must humor her. But it is

distressing to do so. (_To_ ROSE.) You would marry me?

ROSE: Oh, yes!

DR. VAN HYDE: You like me well enough for that?

ROSE: I liked you at first sight.

DR. VAN HYDE: But you have barely an acquaintance with me.

ROSE: So much the better. If my acquaintance with you were

more intimate, I might not be willing to marry you.

DR. VAN HYDE: You can’t love me, however; and what is marriage

without love?

ROSE: Why can’t I love you?

DR. VAN HYDE: Love, my dear child, love is the tenderest

passion of our nature. It is the flower of life. It is the affinity of

souls. It is--

ROSE (_passionately_): It is--it is.

DR. VAN HYDE (_aside_): If I could only believe that she might

learn to love me--that she had not loved forty other men--that she was

not a monster in the guise of a siren! Yet I will do my duty, cruel as

it is to me. (_To_ ROSE.) But your father?

ROSE: Papa has never objected to my loving anybody.

DR. VAN HYDE: Then you have loved somebody else?

ROSE: Yes, indeed. Eighteen.

DR. VAN HYDE: Eighteen!

ROSE: Eighteen lost opportunities. You are the nineteenth.

If you refuse to take me, I shall have to look out for my twentieth.

Perhaps you can introduce me to one of your friends.

DR. VAN HYDE: Suppose--suppose--I consent to marry you; that

is to say, suppose you consent to marry me. How can I be sure that you

won’t fall in love with your twentieth--as you call him--to-morrow.

ROSE: You can’t be sure. Love has wings like a bird. Its

natural action is flight. How can one help loving?

DR. VAN HYDE (_tenderly_): I should not wish to share your

love with another man.

ROSE: I don’t understand you.

DR. VAN HYDE (_aside_): This is the most remarkable case in my

experience. The girl is clean daft on one subject. And yet, somehow, I

am half inclined to take her at her word. I might succeed in curing her

of her mania; I might transform her, create a new woman in this unhappy

spirit; I can not abandon her to a wretched fate. (_To_ ROSE.)

You say you do not understand me?

ROSE: I can’t understand why I should not be allowed to love

whomever I please.

DR. VAN HYDE: The law declares that you must love but one

husband.

ROSE: As I could only have one husband at a time, I might

still love some one who was not my husband.

DR. VAN HYDE (_crossing to_ R. _and seating himself

next to_ ROSE): Don’t you think you could love one man, whose

devotion to you would be tireless, whose life would be your life, whose

thought would be always for your welfare and happiness; don’t you think

you could love this man, and this man alone?

ROSE (_moving away from him_): I never thought of that.

DR. VAN HYDE (_moving toward her again_): Try, try, my dear

child, to see things with my eyes.

ROSE: I have a pair of my own, thank you.

_Dr. Van Hyde_ (_losing himself in his passion_): Listen to me. I _do_

love you, and I want you to love me--but not as you love other men. I

am anxious to be your friend, your very best friend. I want you to look

to me as you would look to no one else. I want--

ROSE (_changing her manner and laughing_): You play your part

admirably, Dr. Van Hyde.

DR. VAN HYDE (_in astonishment_): Play my part!

ROSE: You have just asked me to love you?

DR. VAN HYDE: Yes.

ROSE: To accept you as my very best friend?

DR. VAN HYDE: Yes.

ROSE: Then I wish to tell you, sir, that you have been

trifling with me. Your love-making is purely professional. It is a kind

of medicine.

DR. VAN HYDE (_aside_): This is a hopeless case.

ROSE: Furthermore, I have convicted you of falsehood. You

never met my father until to-night. You did meet _me_ last Monday

afternoon, in New York, at 2:25 p. m.

DR. VAN HYDE: Miss Valdingam!

ROSE (_courtesying to him_): Permit me to thank you, dear

doctor, for your kindness in picking up my parcels, my parasol, my

purse, and myself. I did not have a chance to thank you while you were

performing that unpleasant duty.

DR. VAN HYDE: Then you remember?

ROSE: How could I forget so fascinating an adventure,

although, to be sure, we crazy women are apt to have defective memories.

DR. VAN HYDE (_aside_): Have I been a fool? (_To_

ROSE.) I may as well confess that, when I saw you for the

first time here to-night, I recognized you. But I did not suppose that

you recognized me.

ROSE: Which proves that you are not so wise a doctor as you

ought to be.

DR. VAN HYDE: Really, Miss Valdingam--

ROSE: Really, Dr. Van Hyde--

DR. VAN HYDE: I--I do not know what to say.

ROSE: I repeat--you have played your part admirably.

DR. VAN HYDE: How can you accuse me of playing a part?

ROSE: Sweet duplicity! Did you not come here to minister to my

mind’s disease?

DR. VAN HYDE: To meet you--to learn to know you.

ROSE: Of course. Meanwhile, by way of illustrating my mania,

you made love to me.

DR. VAN HYDE: That is--

ROSE: That is--you played a part. And you were so successful

that, a few minutes ago, you thought I had fallen in love with you.

DR. VAN HYDE: You embarrass me, Miss Valdingam.

ROSE: A doctor should never be embarrassed. He should keep a

cool head. His nerves should be steady; his hand determined. Now, let

us be entirely frank. You wanted to diagnose me--to analyze me--perhaps

to hypnotize me. Have I been a good subject?

DR. VAN HYDE (_awkwardly_): An admirable subject.

ROSE: And, honestly, what do you think of my mania now?

DR. VAN HYDE (_still more bewildered_): It is a very gentle

mania.

ROSE: A very gentle mania? Nothing worse than that?

DR. VAN HYDE: Nothing worse; I am convinced.

ROSE: You reassure me. But let me tell you, in return, that I

have reason to be grateful to you, Dr. Van Hyde. It may be that I am

matrimonially mad. Many persons are. Nearly all girls are. But at least

I feel certain that I shall never be confined in an asylum. You would

not let them send me to an asylum, would you?

DR. VAN HYDE: No! No!

ROSE: Then we can afford to be good friends.

DR. VAN HYDE: The best of friends.

ROSE: We need not talk of love again?

DR. VAN HYDE (_hesitatingly_): No.

ROSE: Because, you see, though you are a man, you are also my

doctor; and a patient could not fall in love with her doctor, could she?

DR. VAN HYDE: Well, it’s not usual.

ROSE: Then, let me ask you a question. Do you think my

malady--it is a terrible malady, I suppose--can be cured?

DR. VAN HYDE: I am sure it can be.

ROSE: Ah! you give me hope.

DR. VAN HYDE: But you must follow my instructions carefully.

These I will explain to you later. In the first place, however, you

should try to exercise a certain amount of will power. When you meet a

person--that is, a man--

ROSE: I should hate and despise him.

DR. VAN HYDE: Oh, not so bad as that. You should avoid him.

ROSE: Avoid him, I see.

DR. VAN HYDE: Then you could hardly fall in love with him.

ROSE: Nor marry him.

DR. VAN HYDE: Of course you need amusement.

ROSE: Of course.

DR. VAN HYDE: Get as much of it as you can.

ROSE (_aside_): I’m getting it.

DR. VAN HYDE: Meanwhile, I will have a talk with your father.

ROSE: Papa will do anything for me.

DR. VAN HYDE: Then we have little to fear.... Now (_he turns

to upper_ L.) I know you must be tired. This long talk has

fatigued you. I will call Mr. Valdingam. (_He is about to open the

door._)

ROSE (_suddenly_): One moment, please.

DR. VAN HYDE (_turning to her_): Yes?

ROSE: Pardon me, I am not in the least fatigued. I

have--something more to say.

DR. VAN HYDE: Indeed?

ROSE: Before you see papa again.... Please sit down. (_He

seats himself at_ R. _She stands leaning against table at_

L.) We have had quite an important little chat, after all,

have we not?

DR. VAN HYDE (_gravely_): I think it has been important.

ROSE: For me?

DR. VAN HYDE: For you, I hope.

ROSE: And during this conversation, have I had--any lucid

intervals?

DR. VAN HYDE: Well, candidly, and though I am what is called

a specialist in brain diseases, I should regard your mind as perfectly

normal and healthy, except--

ROSE: Except on the subject of matrimony.

DR. VAN HYDE: Ye-s.

ROSE: Now, suppose I should assure you that I am not in the

least bit insane. Would that be characteristic of insanity?

DR. VAN HYDE: Few persons with a mania suspect their

affliction.

ROSE: I understand. But suppose--suppose--you had been

deceived?

DR. VAN HYDE (_jumping to his feet_): Is it possible?

ROSE: Physicians are deceived sometimes, are they not?

DR. VAN HYDE (_seating himself_): They are only human.

ROSE (_slyly_): And you are _very_ human.

DR. VAN HYDE (_confusedly_): I confess it--to-night.

ROSE: That is why, then, you have been so easily

deceived--to-night?

DR. VAN HYDE (_jumping to his feet again_): You mean?--

ROSE: That you have actually been deceived. I have no

mania--not even a mania to wed all the young men I meet. (_Laughing

merrily._) But, of course, you won’t believe me. My denial is only a

symptom of my dementia.

DR. VAN HYDE: What can I think? Your father told me--

ROSE: Yes, poor papa told you a great many things. You took it

for granted that what he said was said with reason.

DR. VAN HYDE (_moving toward her eagerly_): And I have been--

ROSE: As patient as a saint with the mad-cap teasing of a

foolish girl, and gently considerate of an old man’s whims.

DR. VAN HYDE (_joyfully_): Can it be true? Oh, Miss Valdingam,

I begin to look upon myself as the most ridiculous as well as the

happiest of men.

ROSE: But I could not resist teasing you. And still, in spite

of this confession, I have _one_ mania--only one.

DR. VAN HYDE: A gentle mania?

ROSE: Very gentle, as you have said. It is love--

DR. VAN HYDE (_advancing_): Love!

ROSE (_mischievously_): For my father.

DR. VAN HYDE (_disappointedly_): Oh!

ROSE: He is a good, kind father. Since my mother’s death I

have been his closest companion. Oh, doctor, I am so happy that you

have come to our house. It is my father who needs your help, your

sympathy. You will give both, I know.

DR. VAN HYDE: It is your father, then--

ROSE: Who is partially insane. He has been in this condition

for years. His chief delusion is that I am insane.

DR. VAN HYDE: What a fool I have been!

ROSE: Do not blame yourself. Have I not done what I could to

convince you that papa had told you the truth.... Can you forgive me?

DR. VAN HYDE: Forgive _you_! Can you forgive _me_?

ROSE: Let us forgive each other, then. (_Walking to the window

at_ R. _and looking out._)

DR. VAN HYDE (_following her_): Miss Valdingam--I--

ROSE (_turning and regarding him archly_): Be careful, sir!

Perhaps you are even now mistaken. Remember how cunning we maniacs are!

DR. VAN HYDE (_aside_): I am more than ever in love with her.

How beautiful she is. Sane or insane, it would be a blessing to possess

her. (_To_ ROSE, _nervously_.) Miss Valdingam, may I ask you a

question?

ROSE (_gently_): Yes.

DR. VAN HYDE: You remember that when--when--I thought you were

not quite--

ROSE: Balanced.

DR. VAN HYDE: I had the hardihood--well--to speak to you of

love.

ROSE: Certainly. You spoke professionally.

DR. VAN HYDE: I did _not_ speak professionally.

ROSE (_looking out of the window_): Oh, indeed?

DR. VAN HYDE: I spoke with sincerity--from my heart.

ROSE (_with mock dignity_): Sir!

DR. VAN HYDE: I must tell you the truth. Since that day--

ROSE (_smiling_): Monday at 2:25 p. m.

DR. VAN HYDE: Don’t laugh at me. I was in earnest a few

moments ago--I am in earnest now.... I love you!

ROSE (_with agitation_): You love me!

DR. VAN HYDE: With all my soul. (_He seizes her hand and

kisses it._)

ROSE (_drawing her hand away quickly_): Hush! Some one is

coming.

MR. VALDINGAM (_from behind the door_): Can we come in, doctor?

ROSE (_in a whisper to the doctor_): Pretend that you do not

know the truth, that you are able to cure me.

DR. VAN HYDE (_in a whisper_): That I have taken the case?

ROSE: Yes.

DR. VAN HYDE: For life?

ROSE: We shall see. But speak to him.

DR. VAN HYDE (_turning to_ L.): Is that you, Mr.

Valdingam? Please come in. (_Enter_ MR. VALDINGAM _and_

SUSAN.)

MR. VALDINGAM (_eagerly and secretly, to_ DR. VAN

HYDE): Well?

DR. VAN HYDE (_gravely_): I am glad to be able to assure you,

Mr. Valdingam, that my preliminary examination of your daughter has

been entirely satisfactory.

MR. VALDINGAM: Sir, I am overwhelmed with delight.

DR. VAN HYDE: While your daughter is, without doubt, suffering

from certain delusions--

MR. VALDINGAM (_turning to_ SUSAN): Do you hear that,

sister?

DR. VAN HYDE: Her trouble is not far enough advanced to

occasion anxiety.

MR. VALDINGAM: Heaven be praised!

DR. VAN HYDE: In fact, I promise you that within one month her

mind will be as clear and vigorous as your own.

MR. VALDINGAM (_grasping the doctor’s hands_): Sir, I regard

you as our benefactor.

DR. VAN HYDE: But you must be very patient and kind; and, with

your permission, I will take charge of her. My plan is to visit her,

here at your house, twice, or perhaps three or four times a week. You

will notice an improvement in her condition very soon.

MR. VALDINGAM: Have your way, doctor. So long as my child is saved

to me, that is everything. (_Turning to_ ROSE.) Rose, my pet, I

hear that the doctor and you have become fast friends already.

(ROSE _joins them at_ L. C., _and_ MR. VALDINGAM _kisses and

fondles her_.)

ROSE: Oh, yes, papa, Dr. Van Hyde and I are now very good

friends.

MR. VALDINGAM: That’s right--that’s right. Put your trust in

him, my child. He has your interest at heart.

(MR. VALDINGAM _turns gleefully to_ SUSAN, _and the

two converse_.)

DR. VAN HYDE (_to_ ROSE): You hear? He places you in

my care.

ROSE: I share his confidence.

DR. VAN HYDE: And--may I not hope to be--your nineteenth?

ROSE: There has not yet been--a first.

DR. VAN HYDE: Shall we unite then in a study of agreeable

possibilities?

ROSE (_archly_): Won’t you walk with me in the garden? See how

bright and beautiful the night is!... Come. Perhaps I may find you--_a

rose_.

(ROSE _and_ DR. VAN HYDE _exeunt at_ L. _as

the curtain falls._)

GEORGE EDGAR MONTGOMERY.

* * * * * *

Transcriber’s note:

--Obvious errors were corrected.