hrough excitement and trouble lately, and it has
made you feel such a need more than ever. Give me your hand, dear Elsie,
and trust me that I will be as true a friend to you as if we were
children of the same mother."

Elsie gave him her hand mechanically. It seemed to him that a cold aura
shot from it along his arm and chilled the blood running through his
heart. He pressed it gently, looked at her with a face full of grave
kindness and sad interest, then softly relinquished it.

It was all over with poor Elsie. They walked almost in silence the rest
of the way. Mr. Bernard left her at the gate of the mansion-house, and
returned with sad forebodings. Elsie went at once to her own room, and
did not come from it at the usual hours. At last Old Sophy began to be
alarmed about her, went to her apartment, and, finding the door unlocked,
entered cautiously. She found Elsie lying on her bed, her brows strongly
contracted, her eyes dull, her whole look that of great suffering. Her
first thought was that she had been doing herself a harm by some deadly
means or other. But Elsie, saw her fear, and reassured her.

"No," she said, "there is nothing wrong, such as you are thinking of; I
am not dying. You may send for the Doctor; perhaps he can take the pain
from my head. That is all I want him to do. There is no use in the
pain, that I know of; if he can stop it, let him."

So they sent for the old Doctor. It was not long before the solid trot
of Caustic, the old bay horse, and the crashing of the gravel under the
wheels, gave notice that the physician was driving up the avenue.

The old Doctor was a model for visiting practitioners. He always came
into the sick-room with a quiet, cheerful look, as if he had a
consciousness that he was bringing some sure relief with him. The way a
patient snatches his first look at his doctor's face, to see whether he
is doomed, whether he is reprieved, whether he is unconditionally
pardoned, has really something terrible about it. It is only to be met
by an imperturbable mask of serenity, proof against anything and
everything in a patient's aspect. The physician whose face reflects his
patient's condition like a mirror may do well enough to examine people
for a life-insurance office, but does not belong to the sickroom. The
old Doctor did not keep people waiting in dread suspense, while he stayed
talking about the case,--the patient all the time thinking that he and
the frien