It was not very long until gossip began to busy itself once more with this young lady’s name—a new suitor began to be suspected. Young Lord Dungarret, with a coronet and twelve thousand a year at his disposal, was evidently smitten, and to such a degree, that Miss Chadleigh became ten degrees more ugly than ever in the eyes of the female world of Dublin. While matters were in this state, however, it happened that one day, as Sir Arthur sat in his chamber, damning his old enemy, the gout, in solitary suffering and ill-temper, somebody hesitatingly knocked at his chamber door.
“Come in—well?” he exclaimed, turning his mottled and gloomy visage full on the intruder.
The person who entered was old Martha, a privileged domestic of some threescore years, who had been the nurse, and was now the attendant of Mary Chadleigh, whom she absolutely idolized. “I’m come, sir, about the young mistress,” she said, approaching; “for, indeed, I’m afraid she’s very bad—she’s very sick, sir, and I would not be easy without the doctor seeing her.”
“Sick—is she?” said the baronet; “young ladies are always ailing—it’s interesting, and nurses always croaking—they have nothing else to do; I wish she had half-a-day’s experience of my gout—curse it—and she’d know what pain is like.”
“Why, then, indeed, sir, she really is bad, and very bad, I’m afraid, this time,” said the woman, with dignified emphasis. “It is not, of course, for an old woman like me, that’s nothing to the darling young lady, more than just nursing her and taking care of her, to be dictating to her own father, that, of course, has more feeling for his own child than the likes of me ’id have; but all I say is, she is really bad, and—”
“Well, well, well—send for the doctor, to be sure, and don’t plague me any more; and just tell him,” he added, as the old woman reached the door, “if he finds anything seriously amiss, that I will feel much obliged by his looking in here, and telling me what he thinks of her—do you hear?”
In obedience to the summons, accordingly dispatched, Dr. Robertson, as I shall call him, then in extensive practice in Dublin, and who had been for twenty years the physician in attendance upon the family, arrived late in the evening. He was a large, good-natured man, with a rough voice, emphatic delivery, and a brusque and decisive manner—clearheaded and rapid—with a thorough knowledge of the world, as well as a consummate skill in his profession. With a very rough exterior, and an occasional coarseness, and even severity of expression, Dr. Robertson was, nevertheless, a kind and tenderhearted man; and these sterling qualities had served to secure him a vested interest in the practice to which his reputation had once introduced him.
It was, as I have said, late in the evening, when a peremptory double knock at the door announced the arrival of the physician. With brisk and creaking steps he followed the servant, who conducted him directly to the young lady’s chamber. The house was a vast and handsome mansion; and after ascending a stone staircase, and passing a handsome lobby, he found himself in a kind of antechamber, from which the young lady’s sleeping apartment opened. Here he remained for a moment, while old Martha went in to prepare her young mistress for the visit. After about a minute, she returned, and intimated that Miss Chadleigh was ready.
Doctor Robertson accordingly entered. The young lady was lying upon her bed, her face deadly pale, except where two bright spots of hectic crimson glowed with unnatural warmth; her eyes were swollen with tears, and as the physician approached, she turned away from his well-known, good-natured countenance, and hid her face in the bedclothes.
“Well, well, my dear, what is all this? Come, come, we’ll make a cure of you in no time—don’t fret—we’ll have you well in a day or two.”
Thus saying, in rough and kindly tones, he took her hand, and as he felt her pulse, continued—
“And tell me where you feel amiss—there’s a good child—don’t sob—don’t cry—I promise you it won’t signify.”
“Oh, doctor,” she said, with her face still averted, “I am very ill, and—and—in such wretched spirits.”
Here the poor girl again burst into tears; and while she was weeping, the old nurse stole noiselessly out of the chamber, and closing the door, walked restlessly from one spot to another in the outer room we have described; now arranging a screen, now replacing a chair by the wall, now stirring the fire, but, with an abstracted and miserable look, and wringing her withered hands ever and anon in the intervals. This had gone on with little variation, except that the old woman occasionally looked with an expression of intense anxiety, and even horror, at the door which concealed her young mistress and her professional visitor from view, when at last it opened, and Doctor Robertson came out, buried, as it seemed, in profound and painful thought, and looking unusually pale and agitated; he walked, by two or three steps at a time, pausing, and occasionally shaking his head gloomily in the intervals, and sat himself down in silence before the fire, and ruminated for some minutes. At last he stood up briskly, turned his back to the fire, beckoned to the old woman, and as she approached, raised the candle, so that its light fell full upon her face.
“Where do you sleep, Martha?” he asked, abruptly.
“Where—where do
