The Doctor's Daughter

pless little baby girl: a dear, chubby, little thing, who at that moment, if never afterwards in the long and intricate course of her mortal career, looked every jot as interesting and as promising of

the advent of this little stranger into their humble home. Buried in baby finery, this unsuspecting new-comer slumbered contentedly in a dainty cot. The room was silent and darkened, the bright morning sunshine being shut out by the heavy curtains which were carefully drawn ac

s in the dawning future, for this passive little bundle of humanity lying in state in her neatly furnished basket-cradle; whether it pleas

phers and moralists, with their choicest erudition, are ofttimes puzzled over the solution of a mysteriously c

ve never failed to produce certain infallible results; but, these abnormal pauses, and unforeseen interruptions, that, time and again, have made of human lives the very thing against which appearances were guarding them, are, it may

t to a rational origin. Like decades of heterogeneous pearls, a human career with all its varied details, glides through the fingers of the moral anatomist, each fraction standing ou

and innocent babyhood, we are mystified and awe-stricken; there is so much inequality among the lots and portions of the children of men, that

aided upon the "sands of time," a distinct personality has been established, which is the embodiment of possible, probable, or uncertain influences-a personality which grows and thrives

om ourselves to meditate upon this truth as seriously as we would upon a religious one, to examine our conscience from it as from a reliable st

d hushed forever: for then will they realize how dependent we poor mortals are upon each other for sorrows or joys: then will it be plain to the

to man a friend and companion in the first moments of his existence; but is the world less desolate, less empty to a million hearts, because a million others inhabit it as well? Has God's original intention

may seem extravagant in more ways than one: but my object, as the reader will see, is only to remind the forgetful majority, that there are ne

elopment, to examine the nature of every external influence that weighs upon it, and if the innocence of childhood has been r

first I was a peculiarly situated child, surrounded by many comforts of which the majority of well-born children are deprived, and deprived of many comforts by which lowly-born children are surrounded. I was happiest when

er. This I never learned as a direct fact, in simple words, until I had grown older; but there is another channel through which truths of this sorrowful nature oftentimes find their way: strange suspicions were creeping by degrees into my heart, which

ere old Hannah, our tried and trustworthy servant, was wont to go at times and pray. No one had whispered to me that my fath

little weaknesses and childish errors were never met with that enduring forbearance which is the distinctive outgrowth of a loving maternity. My trifling joys were rarely smiled upon, my petty sorrows never s

er, which privilege suggested no lack of substantial and dainty provisions, and my governess was an accomplished and very discreet lady, whom my step-mother secured after much trouble

econd wife was naturally one of those selfish, narrow-hearted women, who never go outside of their personal lot to taste or give pleasure. She had not the faintest conception of what th

p-rooted impression upon me, she would have shrugged her shoulders pettishly, I doubt not,

he hardly knew why. She was not very handsome, nor very winning, and certainly, not very clever, but her family was a rare and tender off-shoot from an unquestionably ancient and

ced, and that nothing but the ripening years of the prospective bride could have reconciled her more symp

entleman of social and political influence, whose name had crept into journals and newspapers of popular fame: in other words, he was one of "the men" of his day, with a voice upon all public matters that agitated his immediate sp

abstract calculations and wonderful statistics. Again they are scientists, of a more or less exalted standing, artists, antiquarians, agnostics, and undertakers, and they are all harmless, respectable Benedicts, you k

be done systematically according to reasons and rules, and the trivial mind that would fain dwell upon a time in such methodical live

th confirmed it, and even the little silk guard, that rested consciously upon his immaculate linen, sustained the presumption. But for those and a few other reasons, he wa

h its base directed backward towards the spine, and its point, forward and downward, towards the left side, and that at each contraction it would be felt striking between the fifth and sixth ribs about four inches from the medium line." "So you see, my dear," he concluded calmly and coldly, "that you talk nonsense, when you say I have no heart." That was my father's disposition; to suspect that any one, or anything else could hope for the privilege of making his heart beat, except this natural physical contraction, were a vain and empty surmise indeed. And yet he had been twice married; the question may suggest itself, had he ever loved

xpectations of her husband, or not, is a something which I could only suspect, or at most, arrive at from the

the indiscreet writer, who raises the thick impenetrable veil, which is supposed to screen a domestic, political or social grievance from the common eye of all three conditions. Even he who makes a little rend, with his own pen, for his ow

py in reality, then ours was indisputably so, but the world and

ill-humour. This latter personage had contracted several real or imaginary disorders and absorbed her own soul, with all its most tender attributes, in her constant demand and need for a sympathy and solicitude which were nowhere to be found. Her husban

s, from time to time, they appeared among the gay coterie to which they always belonged in name, looking as happy and contented a

lf into an open sea of dangers and difficulties, with nothing more wholesome to distract it during

ve caught the ready, willing ear of an attentive parent, had mine been such. In my twelfth year I was as much a woman a

side me, and forced by rigid, arbitrary circumstances to train my growing convictions into many a hazardous channel, left to myself to grope among the dawning mysteries of life, that are a burden to

I had, with a child's instinctive confidence in its parent, gone to him in my lonely hours, and thrown my hands convulsively about his neck, to tell my tale of trifling woes, what difference would it have made? Very little. He would have given me a silver coin or two, and told me to run away and amuse myself, that he was busy and

was about to bury my tear-stained face upon his shoulder, when he raised his eyes impatiently, and brushed away, with a peevish gesture, one of my salt tears that lay appealingly upon the smooth broadcloth covering of

ugh in my outward conduct there was nothing which insinuated the

oom and throwing myself wearily into my little rocking-chair, where, w

d angry revolt against a fate that could wound me so undeservedly, I flung the wretched coin, with

his incident changed the whole tenor of my rebellious thought; in the earlier part of the day I had dressed this doll in very fine clothes, intending to carry it to the house

oject, and turned my thoughts into a pleasant channel. I rose up and dried my eyes, and putting on my little sun-bonnet, gathered up t

in her chair with pillows at her back, and her thin hair fell from her bowed head over the worn and dog-eared pages of her mother's prayer-book. It was her only other companion, besides her mother and me, and through many long, l

foolish vanities of the world have crowded themselves in between me and my cherished memori

aised me, and thanked me, and urged me to be grateful to the kind Father who had willed my surroundings to be those of comfort and prosperity, what did I do? Good reader! I smiled half consciously, and thus sanc

over many others: to feel that in spite of all my harassing little cares, my life could assume an exterior aspect of smoothness and happiness, was a short-lived, though powerful stimulant, even to my childish

tered broadcast over the world, are friends of my childhood, my girlhood, and my womanhood, who look upon

t will, like any other garment; and hence is it that the earthly happiness of men and women is susceptible of a relative definition only. I do not wish to argue that such a thing as happiness itself has become as obsolete in our day as hoop-skirts and side-combs, for, from the earliest reflections I have ever indulged in, I have concluded that it is quite easy to attain to a tolerable degree of happiness, if exter

orrows of my younger days, for, I admit, that though I thrived after a fashion under thei

changeless monotony of my existence; every day a tiresome repetition

ad a high-bred fear, lest in sending me to an educational establishment I should indulge my uncouth tendencies by cultivating unfashi

chool with a more impartial eye. A change was creeping, slowly, but surely, into our lives: hardly for the bett

e prospect of maternity began to grow less shadowy and more reliable, her heart did seem to swell at rare intervals with a real, or assumed pity for the little

ence. She would stroke my head with a gesture of repenting, amending tenderness, give me a bunch of gay ribbons for my last new doll, or even read me a thrilling tale from my Christm

of no improvement in my attitude towards my step-mother, I had not even wished, or determined to show her a

er sanction or command, just as her life-blood did; that it permeated her very being, when she neither sought nor expected it, and th

free, unfettered creature I had been for the first part of my life. I could no longer dispose of my days and hours

less evil in my eyes. Naturally my stepmother was beside herself with ecstacy, but w

nd solemnly imposed upon all. When baby was awake, the clatter prov

ey, come and sing to baby-Amey, come and rock baby to sleep"-and I, though striving to encourage a good intention and a hopeful outlook, finally succumbed to the very human

hly and carelessly as if it were an ordinary baby; shook it when it screamed and refused to rock it while it slept. In the end, with the undaunted heroism of unselfish maternity, she resigned herself wholly and entirely to t

nd peevishly at all hours of the day and night; rending the air with prolonged and impatient screams tha

ably and irreclaimably, her own. No one envied it to her, and as no one sought to share any of the possible benefits t

ess worry and trouble. Even my father grew unsympathetic, and actually arose one night when baby's plaintive minor key was resounding through

instance of this nature, and stowed away its keen impressions to be acted upon later, when time

after all did not mean what daily passed within the narrow arena of my home; something whispered to me that outside those paltry limits, far away over all the spires and chimney-tops, where the sky was s

ch-tower of to-day? How I know now that this was the farewell passage of my childhood, which was winging its flight, and

ere might be in the growth and development of those who learn the alphabet of life upon our knee, take one pang from the natural and pardonable sorrow with which we watch the

ilities that can never now be realized; if we may credit the prophecies of such sorrowing mothers who, bending over the cradle from which some baby-spirit has just passed into the kingdom of the little ones, tell in broken accents of sorrow and regret of all the promises of goodness and greatness which have been sa

e must not forget, as we dwell upon them, what the possible, nay even probable mission was, of each little pair of dimpled hands tha

s us, not into a safe and definite eternity, but only into another phase of temporal life; when the toys and the picture books are stowed awa

-life. Let us remember this always, when we are tempted to pass our rigid judgments upon our fellow-creatures. Let us not lose sight of these occult impediments of fa

ciated with the advent of my interesting half-brother, I can permit myself to mention a few th

s and mine, and naturally enough, according as this child grew he drifted our two lives farther and farther asunder. He absorbed all the latent sympathy and love from th

smiled upon approvingly until his good humour gave way, as soon as the little features wrinkled ominously my father

ily, the metal was harsh and the little wheels could never be got to run briskly or smoothly. How could they? I think of all the hopeless conditions on earth, th

mutual interest; they who hope either by subterfuge or unselfish zeal, to reconcile phases of human character that have not originally sprung from a common ro

edded love, are supposed still to live according to a precept of universal charity? How indifferent they become to one another's fortune or

fe outside their own, and are so easily satisfied to see furrows on other brows than their own. I know that the human heart is instinctively covetous of earthly happiness, and, in nine cases out of ten argues that its end justifies the means, whatever they may be, of insuring it.

Not until it has become a thing of the past; and as for the happiness of anticipation, it is not worth much w

are loosened, and our souls expand in a glorious freedom, the power of fate is temporarily suspended, the pressure is removed from our spirit which soars abo

asantness! Pain is vastly more to the human heart than the absence of pleasure; pain is not merely an emptiness, or void, created by the flight of more cheerful influences; it has a more definite and distinct accepta

s; pain is learned, and it is ignorant; it underlies the deepest, tenderest love, and it instigates the darkest, bitterest hatred; in a word it is a weed which infests the very choicest parterres of our minds and hearts, it thrives among th

ish attempts to grasp the will-o'-the-wisp that has been coaxing and deceiving men for centuries. It is surprising that our persiste

my development; it is the web which the deft fingers of my memory have woven around many a quiet

sonality with which my thought invests people, at the cross of those four great roads towards which, from all corners of the earth, the spirits of mankind

w the habit has grown with me through all these years, with this difference, however: in the reveries of my womanhood the heroes a

rned for the touchstone of sober experience, to-day they are the re-creation of memory, and a r

ive observer, it is plain and ordinary enough. It is when we take away the flesh and blood reality, whi

he visible surface all that has lain hidden for years from the casual glance of the general observer; lay bare the secret teno

ul lens; is it still the same uninteresting blade it was a moment ago out in the noisy and crowded thoroughfare? Why does your gaze become riveted upon what is revealed? Ah! you discern that such homely things are not at all what you have been wont to think them. You are astonished to find how e

hat we look upon an isolated fellow-creature as if he were not one of us, but remove

far stranger than fiction. It is because we men and women will conceal the realities of our lives from one another, and under the banner of an all-enduring pride, str