The Project Gutenberg EBook of Marjorie Daw, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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Title: Marjorie Daw

Author: Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Posting Date: October 23, 2008 [EBook #1758]
Release Date: May, 1999

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARJORIE DAW ***

Produced by Susan L. Farley

MARJORIE DAW

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

I.

DR. DILLON TO EDWARD DELANEY, ESQ., AT THE PINES. NEAR RYE, N.H.

August 8, 1872.

My Dear Sir: I am happy to assure you that your anxiety is without
reason. Flemming will be confined to the sofa for three or four weeks,
and will have to be careful at first how he uses his leg. A fracture
of this kind is always a tedious affair. Fortunately the bone was very
skilfully set by the surgeon who chanced to be in the drugstore where
Flemming was brought after his fall, and I apprehend no permanent
inconvenience from the accident. Flemming is doing perfectly well
physically; but I must confess that the irritable and morbid state of
mind into which he has fallen causes me a great deal of uneasiness. He
is the last man in the world who ought to break his leg. You know how
impetuous our friend is ordinarily, what a soul of restlessness and
energy, never content unless he is rushing at some object, like a
sportive bull at a red shawl; but amiable withal. He is no longer
amiable. His temper has become something frightful. Miss Fanny Flemming
came up from Newport, where the family are staying for the summer, to
nurse him; but he packed her off the next morning in tears. He has a
complete set of Balzac's works, twenty-seven volumes, piled up near his
sofa, to throw at Watkins whenever that exemplary serving-man appears
with his meals. Yesterday I very innocently brought Flemming a small
basket of lemons. You know it was a strip of lemon-peel on the curbstone
that caused our friend's mischance. Well, he no sooner set is eyes
upon those lemons than he fell into such a rage as I cannot adequately
describe. This is only one of moods, and the least distressing. At other
times he sits with bowed head regarding his splintered limb, silent,
sullen, despairing. When this fit is on him--an