an cure. He would willingly, it is said, have taught
his apprentice the secrets of these prescriptions, but the latter, being
of a timid character and delicate conscience, had shrunk from
acquaintance with them. It was probably as the result of the same
scrupulosity that Dr. Dolliver had always declined to enter the medical
profession, in which his old instructor had set him such heroic examples
of adventurous dealing with matters of life and death. Nevertheless, the
aromatic fragrance, so to speak, of the learned Swinnerton's reputation
had clung to our friend through life; and there were elaborate
preparations in the pharmacopoeia of that day, requiring such minute
skill and conscientious fidelity in the concocter that the physicians
were still glad to confide them to one in whom these qualities were so
evident.

Moreover, the grandmothers of the community were kind to him, and
mindful of his perfumes, his rose-water, his cosmetics, tooth-powders,
pomanders, and pomades, the scented memory of which lingered about their
toilet-tables, or came faintly back from the days when they were
beautiful. Among this class of customers there was still a demand for
certain comfortable little nostrums, (delicately sweet and pungent to
the taste, cheering to the spirits, and fragrant in the breath,) the
proper distillation of which was the airiest secret that the mystic
Swinnerton had left behind him. And, besides, these old ladies had
always liked the manners of Dr. Dolliver, and used to speak of his
gentle courtesy behind the counter as having positively been something
to admire; though, of later years, an unrefined, an almost rustic
simplicity, such as belonged to his humble ancestors, appeared to have
taken possession of him, as it often does of prettily mannered men in
their late decay.

But it resulted from all these favorable circumstances that the Doctor's
marble mortar, though worn with long service and considerably damaged by
a crack that pervaded it, continued to keep up an occasional intimacy
with the pestle; and he still weighed drachms and scruples in his
delicate scales, though it seemed impossible, dealing with such minute
quantities, that his tremulous fingers should not put in too little or
too much, leaving out life with the deficiency or spilling in death with
the surplus. To say the truth, his stanchest friends were beginning to
think that Dr. Dolliver's fits of absence (when his mind appeared
absolutely to dep