The Doctor's Daughter

e winter wind was shrieking plaintively, and over every pane of the window were dense layers of frosty ferns and grasses. It wanted a few minutes for the half

warm, heavy wrapper around me I wheeled a low eas

often those which are most pernicious have a stealthy and unobtrusive progress, and it is only when their destructive mission is well accomplished that we become aware of their existence. There are physical, moral, and mental wrecks, the playthings of every varying circumstance that agitates the sea of life, who are living examples of the truth I uphold: men and women who have made an oblation of their greatest energies and capacities to lay upon the altars of a profitless materialism. This is of cou

-action, and I never realize so fully that the pleasures of the senses are empty and fleeting as when I have given myself up to an unbridled indulgence of any of them. I have rested my eyes upon every conceivable form and phase of animate and inanimate beauty in my life-time, and to-day my poor eyes are tired and dissatisfied. My ear, that has been inclined to every sort of sweet and sad melo

efy. The way of the world! These little words have justified sin and crime over and over again. They have masked the vilest cunning with a surface of unquestionable propriety; they have quietly sanctioned one fashionable folly after another, until vice and virtue are brought to one level, ay, and if needs be, the former triumphs, and the latter is shoved aside to make headway for its counterfeit. It is the way of the world that poverty be sneered at and denounced,

one. I recalled Mr. Dalton's steady look, even Miss Nibbs' funny little personality rode upon the embers, and brought a faint smile to my pensive countenance. I teazed myself with interrogative conjectures of every kind, now leaning towards one, and now towards another. Somehow the vagaries of

throwing the note into my lap. "Rouse your

my surprise, and appeared to ha

Amey, I wish you would come over at about one o'clo

ed, as I went in search

r delicate hands clasped over her shapely head. Her long, yellow hair fell in soft braids on each slender shoulder. She wore a negligee of white, with delicate trimmings of swan'

me where I stood beside her. "Just throw your becoming we

were both settled luxuriously before the g

ved my note this morning?" Alice asked, drawing

d slowly, "but I found it a

rld, is'n

oking into the fire sa

came to that very conclusion a

hat?" she said, with a wondering

ason in t

Hampden, and thought you a fortunate a

You, the spoilt darling of Fortune herself, you, the cynosure of so

ike that," she int

you are," I ad

heart. I am fortunate enough to escape that experience which gives a flavor and a charm to existence. I am the cynosure of eyes that ar

brated in the room, then laughed a merry, artful l

ear! what funny

ent down to lunch, laughing and chatting as gaily as t

d been renewed and our seats still in the same suggestive places attracted us towards them again. Alice threw herself upon her lounge and hu

elia, a quoi

u," I answered, "you

o gloat over venerable art, and improve my mind generally with such a broad view of experience, but Oh! what a blind that is!" she exclaimed in mock indignation. "Of course everybody knows that I am being sent out to seek my

supreme disgust, as she finished, and bega

ovided so far, I know only one other that can infuse a soul into your vapid and savor less comforts. It is possible for your present gloom

t?" she as

d, "honest, stabl

her delicate braid away from her

ill, but it is the axis around which

and selling. Civilization with deft and tender fingers has smoothened away the rough and repulsive aspect of such a custom, and our ministers now ask, with a bland affectation of pastoral solicitude, 'Who giveth this woman away?' Giveth her! forsooth; and in nine cases out of ten how dearly is she bought! Why, we women are selling our bodies and our souls too, for that matter, eve

one was cold and hard. I look

when the sun is shining all around you. With beauty and riches and intelligence you have the keys to a world of happiness. I cannot think why you sh

cisive sarcasm and drew a weary breath before she a

pite for me in death, I wish I might die tonight. You may think this is the fruit of a gloomy mood, but it is the result of long reflection. Last night I was gay, I sang and played and chatted merrily. Men admired and flattered me, but what is left of it all to-day? Nothing but ashes. I know that what th

where all such troubles are kept at bay, and then the thought becomes repulsive when I th

e uttered these words and

e about a little h

wered gravely, "it is dearer to you

the fire. One of her dainty slippers rested on the fender

nd tired of my own life, what could I say to cheer or encourage her? My heart was full, but my lips were dumb. Something was telling me that there was no perfect happiness for women on earth

, she herself interpre

for. The discontented seamstress that stitches away at my expensive dresses fancies they must shelter a happy heart, whose lot she covets; and all the while I am wishing for anything else in the world besides what I have. Whether we marry or remain single, life is a burden to us. We go on from day to day wondering how

. For myself, when I have devoted some time sincerely to my religious duties I know that I feel a better, and most certainly a happier, woman. My life has a higher aim,

do I? Not I. Only for the instinctive belief which I cannot help holding in God and a life to come, I would be no more than a very animal; and only for a something within me-a sort of moral regulator, which the Church calls conscience, I would never stop to question what is right or what is not. This is all the religion I have ever known. I have been brought up with the conviction that most creeds are tole

you are happy in it

nly assumed an authority over me; if it commanded where it counsels; if it exacted

so many doubts which you do not take the trouble to satisfy. There are many like you, Alice, I know a dozen whose souls are riding the unstable surface of a religious speculation. This is tempting God, and you owe yourself the duty of satisfying every want of your inner being. There is a why and a wherefore for everything, therefore clear away the dark clouds that lie between you and Truth. Study and read and reflect, until you can lay your hand in good faith upon your heart, and say: Now I have

ready, and bidding her a fond good-bye, I left her with a promise

d against the storm and plodded silently on. I was thinking of many things the while, and allowing myself to become absorbed in an earnest rehearsal of my own prosy life. Other people passed by m

verie so suddenly and so effectually as the measured

you do

him than I had ever done before, I knew not why. In some vague uncertain way he had been associated with my recent thoughts, not asserting himself as any distinct feature in connection with my cogitation, but underlying it with a merely insinuated influence that made his presence felt in a secret, und

f he had read my secret in my tell-tale countenance, but his face wore that passiv

going h

siting Alice Merivale. I had lunc

if you like," said he tur

to where the path was wider that we migh

? I fling discretion to the wi

t say whom about" I retu

tracted indeed not to have put it in that

late the question can elicit no defi

ha

ked satirically, "neverthele

uch as last night's young girls had a great deal to say in confide

ough

tself particularly open to an i

ings generall

thing else bu

lse was

r earnest love-making

. Dalton, but you seem to know more

tone, then looking up. "It promises to be a st

tanding before our own gate. "

ve an engagement

afte

for what? A new suspicion had suddenly thrust itself in between me and a happy, satisfying conviction which I had cherished of late. The reader will not question whether there is one thing in life more annoying or more discouraging than to see one's settled belief in anything suddenly uprooted and tossed about by unexpe

s thinking of himself and somebody? Why did I dismiss him summarily? If I had urged him to come in he would have consented, and we might have talked it out. We each thought a great deal more than we said, but after all, maybe it was well as it stood. What could he ever be to me more than an old friend-twice my age-and may