to grief; and I promise you that all the hawsers in Gosport Navy-Yard
will never drag me inside the doomed place. How is your patient? If
you expect her to get well, you had better take a 'superstitious' old
woman's counsel, and send her away from that valley of Jehoshaphat."

"I am very sorry to tell you that she was more seriously hurt than I
was at first inclined to believe. Her spine was so badly injured that
although there is no danger of immediate death, she will never be
able to sit up or walk again. She may linger many months, possibly
years; but must, as long as life lasts, remain a bed-ridden cripple.
It is one of the saddest cases I have had to deal with during my
professional career; and Elsie Maclean bears her sufferings with
such noble fortitude, such genuine Christian patience, coupled with
stern Scotch heroism, that I cannot withhold my admiration and
earnest sympathy. Yesterday I held a consultation with four
physicians, and, when we told her the hopelessness of her condition,
she received the announcement without even a sigh, and seemed only
to dread that instead of an assistant she might prove a burden to her
mistress."

"She appears to be a very important personage in the household."

"Yes; she is Mrs. Gerome's nurse, housekeeper, and counsellor,--and I
have rarely seen such warm affection as exists between them. I wish,
Janet, that you were strong enough to call at 'Solitude,' for its
mistress leads a lonely, secluded life, and must require some
society."

"But, Ulpian, I hear strange things about her, and it is hinted that
she is deranged."

"Your knowledge of human nature should teach you how little truth is
generally found in the floating _on dits_ of social circles."

"How long has she been widowed?"

"I do not know, but presume that her affliction has not been very
recent, as she wears no mourning."

"If she has discarded widow's weeds, and dresses in colors, why should
she taboo society, and make herself the town-talk by refusing to
receive even the clergy and their wives? She has lived here ten
months, and I understand from Dolly Spiewell that not a soul has ever
seen her. Of course such eccentricities provoke gossip and tickle the
tongue of scandal, and if the world can't find out the real cause of
such conduct, it very industriously sets to work and manufactures
one."

"Which, in my humble opinion, constitutes a piece of unwarrantable
impertinence on the part of meddling Mrs. G