chair, and, as the
physician rested his arm on the mantelpiece and looked down at her, he
thought of the lines that had more than once recurred to his mind,
since the commencement of their acquaintance,--

"What finely carven features! Yes, but carved
From some clear stuff, not like a woman's flesh,
And colored like half-faded, white-rose leaves.
'Tis all too thin, and wan, and wanting blood,
To take my taste. No fulness, and no flush!
A watery half-moon in a wintry sky
Looks less uncomfortably cold. And ... well,
I never in the eyes of a sane woman
Saw such a strange, unsatisfied regard."

"I suppose I ought to be grateful to you, Dr. Grey, for Katie and
Robert have told me how patiently and carefully you nursed and watched
over me, during my illness; but instead of gratitude, I find it
difficult to forgive you for what you have done. You fanned into a
flame the spark of life that was smouldering and expiring, and baffled
the disease that came to me as the handmaid of Mercy. Death,
transformed into an angel of pity, kindly opened the door of escape
from the woe and weariness of this sin-cursed world, into the calmness
and dreamless rest of the vast shoreless Beyond; and just when I was
passing through, you snatched me back to my burdens and my bitter lot.
I know, of course, that you intended only kindness, but you must not
blame me if I fail to thank you."

"You forget that life is intended as a season of fiery probation, and
that without suffering there is no purification, and no reward.
Remember, 'Calm is not life's crown, though calm is well;' and those
who forego the pain must forego the palm."

"I would gladly forego all things for a rest,--a sleep that could know
no end. Katie tells me I have been ill a month, and from this brief
season of oblivion you have dragged me back to the existence that I
abhor. Dr. Grey, I feel to-day as poor Maurice de Guerin felt, when he
wrote from Le Val, 'My fate has knocked at the door to recall me; for
she had not gone on her way, but had seated herself upon the
threshold, waiting until I had recovered sufficient strength to resume
my journey. "Thou hast tarried long enough," said she to me; "come
forward!" And she has taken me by the hand, and behold her again on
the march, like those poor women one meets on the road, leading a
child who follows with a sorrowful air.'"

"There is a better guide provided, if you would only accept and yield
to his ministr