within the charmed
circle of genius, it was not so--that of Christophine, the eldest sister
of Schiller, who, after a self-denying life, died the last survivor of
her family in her ninety-first year, having lived in the loneliness of
widowhood for thirty years on the slenderest of means, yet, we are told,
"in a noble, humbly admirable, and even happy and contented manner;" and
there are many such women. But Bell Thomson, the keeper of this outlying
lodge of the earl's, had no chance of the bull's eye from the lantern of
genius throwing her into a strong permanent light, nor had the friend
who had come to be with her. Happily, the pathetic in their
circumstances did not strike themselves as it might strike others, and
no doubt they had their own interests and enjoyments. At this time they
looked forward to the doctor's daily visit, not merely in the
expectation of gathering hope and comfort from his words, but because
they liked the man himself: he was kind and courteous even to poor old
women, and it was a break in the continuous monotony of their lives.

It chanced on one occasion that the doctor did not get the length of the
lodge till toward the gloaming, having been occupied the whole day: he
was tired, and rather reluctant to hear the minute history of Bell's
sensations for the last twenty-four hours, but he did drive up to the
lodge, and, leaving his gig at the gate, walked in. "How is this?" he
said to Bell: "are you alone? what's become of your nurse?"

"Oh, she had to gang hame for an hour or twa, but I'm no my lane: a
lassie offered to bide wi' me till Ann cam back."

"That's right," said the doctor, and he talked for a little. "Now," he
said, "you're better to-day than you were yesterday, just admit that."

"Weel, I'm nae waur, but, doctor, ye aye see me at my best, come when ye
like. Whether it's you comin' in that sets me up a wee I dinna ken, but
I'm aye lighter when ye're here than ony other time."

"I must try and act the other way," he said: "it won't do for me to
rival my own medicine."

He turned round and saw standing with her back to him, and looking out
at the little window, a girl, apparently the daughter of one of the
neighboring hinds, as farm-servants who live in the cottages on a farm
are called in Scotland. She wore a striped woolen petticoat, short
enough to show her thick worsted stockings and stout little shoes that
were tied close round her ankles; a striped pink-and-white cotton
s