The Doctor's Daughter

wing changes in the routine of our daily life, I might easily have detected the outline of some hovering shadow which was herald

chen stairway, which led into an artistically cultivated vegetable patch at the rear of the house, absorbed in th

, scraping some new potatoes, according to her established principles of economy. We both worked diligently and silently for awhile, and then old Hannah, p

ime over that foolish stuff; fitter for you be knitting a l

critical curve of my paper lady's bustle, which

e, Hannah, if I knew how, but as I don't

n indignantly, "to think you're goin' into your te

o teach me sewing and knitting,

old woman went on half in soliloquy; "a bit of this and a bit of that and not much of either. I pity the housekeepers ye'll m

on-plate in my linen pinafore, I ran outside and looked towards that end of the house. My father was standing at the open casement, and beckoned me to go to him. Whether from the novelty of the occurrence, or the instinctive awe in which I stoo

cid countenance of my step-mother looked up at me from a comfortable easy-chair at the opposite side of the room, I felt that some awful moment had dawned on my existence.

untied, leaving the rich chenille tassels to trail almost upon the ground, and the velvet fronts so elab

s for thus counselling me by the cheerful intelligence that "I was disposed to be round-shouldered any way, and should do my best to check the deformity." I raised my head and lowered my shoulders in silent obedience to this meek injunction, preparing myself inward

n, do we, Amey? We must bend our should

ood neither the meaning of his ambiguous words, nor the motives which

behind him, "this is not exactly what I want to talk to you about; I admit th

ion while he spoke, sublimely innocent o

nge behind me, "I have decided to send you to a first-rate school, Amey, where you will have a chance to perfect yourself in every way; do you t

ion with all its ponderous possibiliti

ooking at me, "that she is quite a dunce for her age, and will need to work very hard in order to make up for lost time. So, your father

ssociate them in any way with my present or future career. In my dreamings I had often pictured myself as grown up and matured; I had even pictured my womanhood so far as tying two of Hannah's long aprons

subject was thrust upon me without any preparation, I felt as if I had seen a ghost and was told to go and speak to it, that it wouldn't harm me; and, lest the reader should attribute my emotion to a more natural, and, I dare say, becoming sentiment

pose of me for an indefinite period of time, and within three weeks of that day when the announcement was first

range moods we are prone to fall! When a wide-spreading distance had thrust itself between me and the home of my early days, I could not help feeling that, after all, my heart had ten

room at home, and the strict and rigid discipline, to which I felt I never could conform, made me look back with a hop

ldering fire of Christian love; and I have searched the world in vain for many a year, among riches and luxuries and comforts, but I have never had the smallest glimpse of that same a

est home lies nestled, when with one sweeping stroke of my active pen I cancel twenty years of my life, and am back again a laughing, careless girl among my school companions, what is time to me? Only a huge and ugly s

upon my sixteenth year. I had of course, in the interval, been visited alternately by my father and st

this had no satisfaction for me, who would rather one glimpse of old Hannah's frilled cap, or one peep through the narrow panes of Ella Wray's

der, which gave me the appearance of being yet taller than I was, and I felt an instinctively spiteful satisfaction in the consciousness that I had quite overcome any tendencies I might

ciety calls a "young lady," but now-a-days an interesting medium has been established and acknowledged; it is the first grade wherein the embryo society belles are initiated into all the intricacies of high life. It has its own

usceptible sixteen, or thereabout, are meekly subjected to a rigid training and instruction by their older and more sophisticated sisters, when they learn "d

stupefied by the look of distracted horror which flashed over my step-mother's face, when, the week af

the maple boughs outside my bed-room window were swaying gently against the lattice, and below i

ds. When all my preparations were ready, and I had dated the first of these effusions, I was disturbed by a timid knock at the door. I laid down m

"This is Tuesday, Miss," the pampered maid answer

hastily, "and my present toilet is

ime to trace-"My darling Ruby,"-when, without intimation or announcement of any kind, my step-moth

any better than that," she went on in a whisper of reproachful despair. "Anyone would know, that when you've been away so long, you will be sure to have people calling on you, so put away that"-s

ough I was so unworthy of sustaining my part of the reputation, in my insignificant opinion we were very silly and very empty-minded creatures, and it was with this very encouraging conviction that I pr

reception. It was a task, however, that was soon ended, and half an hour later I was seated in the drawing room below l

l or most of the talking. They were very well dressed, and altogether non-committal, as far as speech and manners were concerned

ven an accidental glance upon them. From where I sat I observed all this quietly, and with an effort to suppress a smile of bland amusement, I arose and greeted my new-comers-the Merivales! Alice glided towards

en we were all three comfortably deposited in our chairs, Alice Merivale turned her beaming countenance languidly towards me and remarked that "it

ore finished talkers than their predecessors, and when I thought we had touched upon every subject which could intere

out. Fully alive to the import of her question, I affected a most pl

in, then changing her tone to one of most provoking haughtiness, she drooped her white

you li

being initiated, and the sensation was so utterly different from anything I had ever experienced before, that

I continued, looking straight at the ottoman before me, "because people so often appear to disadvantage at first," but my arrow fell flat to

on't mean to say that the Grants are any of these, indeed I never do say anything against anyone. Florrie, I belie

nds know her," Miss Holga

discreet remark, and interrupted

a wonderful tact in one so young she lit up her face with a ha

en think of spending t

her Mama and her Aunt Ada had arranged for their holiday season, and their strong temptation to try Riviere du Loup, where so many fashionable people were said to be retiring just then, she finally arose, and

anship of a worldly step-mother, into the tender hands of patient and devoted sisters, to become, instead of a wandering, uncared for waif, the object of

the destroying influence of evil, if not within convent walls? It is there, or nowhere, that girlhood, growing, aspiring girlhood, ripens into a glorious womanhood. There, go hand in hand the development of mind, and what is more necessary, if possible for a woman, the cultivation of heart. Everyone who looks about him in the social world, and gives a moment of calm consideration to what he sees and hears, ca

asted. It is not because the popular idea of propriety would deny her the right or opportunity to do great things for society or for the state,

and what is the mightiest commonwealth in the world, but a family of families. Ah me! It is a dark day wi

ts of the wrong they are doing the world and themselves. Conscience is not yet an extinct, though it is fast becoming an unpopular and unfashiona

s of my step-mother's circle, I had begun to submit my valuable precepts to profitable practice. My first cal

l the golden admonitions of my school-days, and I have felt myself stimulated anew, towards the steady pursuit

w the beaten track their elders have trodden so unworthily? Will they be taught these nice discriminations between wealth and no wealth? Must they, too, meet a struggling gentility with a haughty, overbearing carriage, and elbow out less independent aspirants, whom some capricious fortune has brought within their contact? Does one littl

and all its glory fad

ind, Riches have win

ea

can deny that this spirit which prevails among so-called well-bred people, is the evident result of that

pleasures, as our tastes were vastly different, and his health on the whole rather delicate, he was a pretty boy in a sailor costume, when I saw him after our long separation, with mild blue eyes and a pallid coun

h affectionate solicitude, and to be told that he was not looking well, was enough to convince Freddie that h

eard my step-mother remark in a fretful tone that "Freddie's old symptoms" were "beginni

ment from the book which I was

papa c

esides," she continued apologetically, "when your father was away last fall and Freddie had a very miserable attack, I called in Dr. Campbell, and he cured him in a fortnight,

p-mother broke forth again, sinking into a seat near the windo

asked ind

ad not paid more attention to her favorite subject. Still unwilling to drop t

dent that the Hunters, and those people, call him in for mere trifles, just to cultivate his friendship. I know that Laur

thy, "I should think she would not care to see a

digests him so well that her family would

tort for or against the absent ones at whom these sly missiles were being aimed. I knew nothing of the circumstances so broadly treated by her, and I therefore

very irregular blocks that, when rightly fitted together, would display to our eager eyes the vividly col

ess, gives his substantial and straightforward evidence. I had a little narrow block between my fingers

With my little e

as thrown open, and my step-mother, accompanied by a

came towards us. "Are they not good little children?" she asked in grand condescension, lo

his is Dr.

ushed and indignant, and did not relish the situation from any stand point. The sing-song testimony of the fly was still ringing in my ea

face. I must have looked up, since I afterwards remembered the tall serious man standing like a dark shadow in the doorway, but this was the only impression of him I

antity that baffled me considerably. I did not suspect that I was then setting myself a double task of this nature, or that many another girl, besides myself, had fi

ely in the palm of my idle hand and with the other, which held my busy pencil, I played a random tattoo on my desk. Before me on my paper was a confused multi

t home among worldly people and pursuits seemed to have thrown open before my eyes the hitherto undreamt of arena of active experience, and w

forms that had impressed me more than others. I went back to the embarassing meeting with Dr Campbell in the library, and as I thought over it I felt

mories of him into any definite outline or form, he was a mere shadow to me, that ha

s bell which set up a prolonged and monotonous ringing just as I was struggling wit

stairway. I felt myself suspended between two distinct lives since my return to school, two lives that ran as widely apart as the streams of the old and new world. The common-place reality of o

felt humbled and fallen. It was the first time for many years that Amey Hampden had been backward in her lessons, and what was wor

justification whatever, of having brought my task unprepared to the school-room. The words almost stifled me. I fain would have plea

es of the matured and sophisticated worldling who has had to do battle with some of the most merciless freaks of fate, but every ambitious student knows that such a crisis as this, under c

ain pleasure in my own successes which, after all, were only the lawful performances of my duty, but then, it is a very plausible thing

" and I resolved to bear up as bravely and worthily as my self-control would allow me. It se

young ladies; I am afraid I will have to c

hour had arrived! I stood boldly up and turned t

hair, who was seated opposite to me, and whom I had never seen in our class before, rose from her seat and went up to Sister Andr

nger with a wistful glance, an

y," she said, gently,

reason for being excused, and looking across towards my apparent benefactor for some vague explanation of her cond

r new pupil stood gazing aimlessly out of a window that looked into our summer play-ground, at the rear of the convent, she

u for the great service

ly and somewhat sadly, revealing, as they did so, two rows of pretty, even teeth. Whether or not, I was partially disposed to admire her on account of the sentim

eign accent "don't speak of it, please, I realized your trying situ

dge which, as a member of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin, I have alwa

you know,

nowing what name to call her by, "Hortense," she e

," I repeated, "what

were wistful and penetrating; then, taking my hand impulsively,

put in parenthetically. We sat down, and without preamble my interes

t sure that I knew you already. Your face was so familiar. I looked at you all the time, while you sat bending over your task, but you never looked at me. I was asking questions to myself about you; I thought I should remember you, and while I was noticing you like that, you halted suddenly in your work and began to think, and then-oh! your face was like one that I have seen somewhere, and that I cannot now remember I knew that your thoughts had changed quickly, and dwelt no longer on your books," she said smiling and laying her hand gently on my two that were folded in my lap, "They were far away, perhaps with mine, and

spot on each dusky cheek, and her red lips were parted in a bewitching smile. I was enraptured, and told her, with

ever seen me before, and I most certainly have never laid eyes upon you until now. If I had, I should not be likely to forget it

, that I leaned over and touched her peach-like cheek with my lip

g but the truth Hortense, will

always, will we not?" she urged warmly. I need not say how readily I agreed,