softly from the adjoining room and closed again, and
Fannie, pale and vigil worn, but with ecstasy in her black eyes,
murmured:

"Oh, John March, I never knew I could be quite so glad to see you!"

She pressed his hand rapturously between her two, dropped it playfully,
and saw that there had come between them a nearness and a farness
different from any that had ever been. John felt the same thing, but did
not guess that this was why her smile was grateful and yet had a pang in
it. There was a self-oblivious kindness in his murmur as he refused a
seat.

"No, I mustn't keep you a moment. Only tell me what I can do for you."

She explained that she would have to go back into the sick-room and
return again, as the physician was in there, and Jeff-Jack was unaware,
and ought probably to be kept unaware, of any other visitor's presence.

John said he would wait and hear the doctor's pronouncements and her
commands. When she came the second time this person appeared with her.
Beyond a soft introduction there were only a few words, and the two men
went away together. As Fannie returned and bent cheerily over the
bridegroom's bed, she was totally surprised by his feeble, bright-eyed
request.

"When John March comes back with the medicine I want to see him."

The man to whom Fannie had introduced John was of a sort much newer to
him than to travelers generally--a typical physician-in-ordinary to a
hotel. He wore a dark-blue overcoat abundantly braided and frogged; his
sheared mustaches were dyed black, and his diamond scarf-pin, a pendant,
was chained to his shirt. As they drove to a favorite apothecary's some
distance away, John told why he had come North, and the doctor said he
had a cousin living at the hotel who had capital, and happened just then
to be looking for investments. It would be no trouble at all to drive
Mr. March back from the apothecary's and make him acquainted with Mr.
Bulger. Was Mr. March fond of horses? Good! Bulger owned the fastest
span in the city, and drove them every morning at ten.

In fact, before they quite reached the hotel again they came upon the
capitalist, ribbons in hand, just leaving a public stable behind such a
pair of trotters that John exclaimed at sight of them and accepted with
alacrity a seat by his side. As for the medicine, the physician himself
took it to Mrs. Ravenel, explained that John would be along in an hour
or two, and said, "Yes, the patient could see Mr. March brief