a month for
some time to come, but his ingenuity failed him altogether, and he grew
angry with himself for desiring what was manifestly impossible.

With true masculine inconsequence, so soon as he was displeased with
himself he visited his displeasure upon the object that attracted him,
and on the earliest possible occasion, on their very next meeting. He
assumed an air of coldness and reserve such as he had certainly not
thought necessary to put on at his first visit. Almost without any
preliminary words of courtesy, and without any attempt to prolong the
short conversation which always took place before he was made to stand
with his back to the abbess's open door, he coldly inquired about the
good lady's condition during the past night, and made one or two
observations thereon with a brevity almost amounting to curtness.

Maria Addolorata was surprised; but as her face was covered, and her
hands were quietly folded before her, Dalrymple could not see that his
behaviour had any effect upon her. She did not answer his last remark at
all, but quietly bowed her head.

Then followed the usual serio-comic scene, during which Dalrymple stood
turned away from the open door, asking questions of the sick woman, and
listening attentively for her low-spoken answers. To tell the truth, he
judged of her condition more from the sound of her voice than from
anything else. He had also taught Maria Addolorata how to feel the
pulse; and she counted the beats while he looked at his watch. His chief
anxiety was now for the action of the heart, which had been weakened by
a lifetime of unhealthy living, by food inadequate in quality, even when
sufficient in quantity, by confinement within doors, and lack of
life-giving sunshine, and by all those many causes which tend to reduce
the vitality of a cloistered nun.

When the comedy was over, Maria Addolorata shut the door as usual; and
she and Dalrymple were alone together in the abbess's parlour, as they
were every day. The abbess herself could hear that they were talking,
but she naturally supposed that they were discussing the details of her
condition; and as she felt that she was really recovering, so far as
she could judge, and as almost every day, after Dalrymple had gone,
Maria Addolorata had some new direction of his to carry out, the elder
lady's suspicions were not aroused. On the contrary, her confidence in
the Scotch doctor grew from day to day; and in the long hours during
whi