of stunned amaze. Then the tramp of feet, and the roll of wheels,
and the great London roar, revived me. That contagion of practical life
which lulls the heart and stimulates the brain,--what an intellectual
mystery there is in its common atmosphere! In another moment I had
singled out, like an inspiration, from a long file of those ministrants
of our Trivia, the cab of the lightest shape and with the strongest
horse, and was on my way, not to my mother's, but to Dr. M--H--,
Manchester Square, whom I knew as the medical adviser to the Trevanions.
Fortunately, that kind and able physician was at home, and he promised
to be with the sufferer before I myself could join him. I then drove to
Russell Street, and broke to my mother, as cautiously as I could, the
intelligence with which I was charged.

When we arrived at the Lamb, we found the doctor already writing his
prescription and injunctions: the activity of the treatment announced
the clanger. I flew for the surgeon who had been before called in. Happy
those who are strange to that indescribable silent bustle which the
sick-room at times presents,--that conflict which seems almost hand
to hand between life and death,--when all the poor, unresisting,
unconscious frame is given up to the war against its terrible enemy the
dark blood flowing, flowing; the hand on the pulse, the hushed suspense,
every look on the physician's bended brow; then the sinapisms to the
feet, and the ice to the head; and now and then, through the lull of the
low whispers, the incoherent voice of the sufferer,--babbling, perhaps,
of green fields and fairyland, while your hearts are breaking! Then, at
length, the sleep,--in that sleep, perhaps, the crisis,--the breathless
watch, the slow waking, the first sane words, the old smile again, only
fainter, your gushing tears, your low "Thank God thank God!"

Picture all this! It is past; Roland has spoken, his sense has returned;
my mother is leaning over him; his child's small hands are clasped round
his neck; the surgeon, who has been there six hours, has taken up his
hat, and smiles gayly as he nods farewell; and my father is leaning
against the wall, his face covered with his hands.

CHAPTER II.

All this had been so sudden that, to use the trite phrase,--for no other
is so expressive,--it was like a dream. I felt an absolute, an imperious
want of solitude, of the open air. The swell of gratitude almost stifled
me; the room did not seem larg