dily and splendidly,
comes the Star, and if she be a fine creature, of a high fame, and
worthy of it,--ah, then look you to her spectator. Rapt and rapturous
she will hold him till the Play is done.

So she found me--held me--holds me. The best of it, thank God, is the
last of it. So, I can say, she holds me to this hour, where and as we
are.

It was on this wise. On my short summer vacation of that year from
which I date my happiness, and which I used to call The Year of my
Lady, as others say The Year of Our Lord, I tarried for a time in a
mountain village, unfashionable and beautiful, where my city patients
were not likely to hunt me down. Fifty-three of them had followed me
to the seashore the year before, and I went back to town a
harder-worked man than I left it. Even a doctor has a right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of a vacation, and that time I struck out for
my rights. I cut adrift--denied my addresses even to my partner--and
set forth upon a walking tour alone, among the hills. Upon one point
my mind was made up: I would not see a sick woman for two weeks.

I arrived at this little town of which I speak upon a Saturday evening.
I remember that it was an extraordinary evening. Thunder came up, and
clouds of colours such as I found remarkable. I am not an adept in
describing these things, but I remember that they moved me. I went out
and followed the trout-brook, which was a graceful little stream, and
watched the pageant in the skies above the tops of the forest. The
trees on either side of the tiny current had the look of souls
regarding each other across a barrier, so solemn were they. They stood
with their gaze upon the heavens and their feet rooted to the earth,
and seemed like sentient creatures who knew why this was as it was.

I, walking with my eyes upon them, feet unguarded, and fancy following
a cloud of rose-colour that hung fashioned in the outline of a mighty
wing above me, caught my foot in a gnarled old hickory root and fell
heavily. When I tried to rise I found that I was considerably hurt.

I was a well, vigorous man, not accustomed to pain, which took a
vigorous form with me; and I was mortified to find myself quite faint,
too much so even to disturb myself over the situation, or to wonder who
would be likely to institute a searching-party for me,--a stranger, but
an hour since, registered at the hotel.

With that ease which I condemned so hotly in my patients I aband