New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-10-31

| the door and found myself in the office. The
doctor lay on q lounge, sleeping heavily, as
if he had just thrown himself down after a
! hard days work. l called to him in vain,
and finally laid violent hands on him. He
must have been dreaming some fearful thing,
| for he seized my wrists as in wise and
roared, +" Now have you'll" before he opened
his eyes.
"You are mistaken, doctor; it is I who
have you," said laughing. He released
my wrists and sat up with eyes very wide
open.
"And what are you going to do with me ?''
"Oh, you must come to my aunt at Dove
cotes this very moment" and began to cry
more heartily than had laughed.
| He took me up as easily as if had been a
baby, and laid me on the lounge. "Now lie
| there perfectly still until my carriage is
ready,'' he said, as one having authority. In
a few minutes he brought me some innocent
looking stuff in glass, which drank with
out word, and my nerves grew steady again.
l climbed into the little old-fashioned sulky,
in which there was but spare room for its
owner--a carriage that must have been in
vented by some misanthropic doctor who did
not mean to drive his own patients. l con-
tracted myself into about the substance of a
paper of pins. and held my breath, but that
sulky was very tight fit, indeed!
wore thin summer dress, with only a
straw hat on my head, and as my excitement
lessened, the cool, sharp air of the September
night pierced me like knife.
"You are shivering," said the doctor,
wrapping one side of his round cloak about
me, and holding me close to his breast with
one arm, while he drove his horse at furious
speed with the other.
| II give you a great deal OF trouble" l
whispered into his beard.
| "Not at all. 1t is all in my days work, "
he said grufily. This was not very gallant,
but it made me more comfortable in mind
as it possibly was meant to do.
| He did all that q doctor could for my aunt,
which was little enough. Time and patience
were all the prescriptions that he gave to her
or to me, but he came every day, sometimes
twice, as he perceived that time was growing
short, and patience would soon have its per-
feet work.
| The old story-old as when Cain went
counting into the land of Mods coming, as
my reader can see with half an eve.
| 1 did not fall in love with DIR. Gilmore, MOI
he with me, all at once but there grew to be
an ineXpressible comfort in his rough SINGER.
| ity, and the warm hand-clasp with which al
every visit he met and stilled my shrinking
nerves.
In the first week of our acquaintance,
confided to him my unwilling listening in
the avenue to the love-quarrel of strangers
With his advice and assistance, l sent care.
fully-wOrded advertisement to the village
paper. To Judge by the pile of answers
which received describing every kind o.
ring that ever was worn, one would think
the earth should have been sown as thick
with them as was the field Of Canine after the
great slaughter of Carthaginian knights. But
| N nf no on CO ne cd n
a violet of sapphires with diamond centre.
In these lonly days 1 saw a great deal Of
my neighbOr, Miss Purdy; she was one Of
those rare and blessed souls who nterpre.
literally the command to love ones neghbol
as ones self. She and her niece Kate Purdy
lived together, as 1 lived with Aunt Esther
and sort of fellOw-feeling from our similar
conditions, made us wOndrOus kind from the
first.
Kate was sparkling brunette, who made
love to everybody "male or female, Jew OF
Gentle, bond or free, J" it was all one TO her,
1 am very meek-looking person myself,
light-haired, blue-eyed, faded out-you al
most need dark background to see me at
all.
Kate and 1 looked we'll together, and stayed
together chiefly for that reason at first, after
ward for a strong and earnest liking that
lasted our lifetime.
| told her all about the ring, and showed
her the answers to my advertisements and
when our talk reached low water on other
matters, we always fell back on speculation
about those two lovers and the sapphire ring.
Kate was disposed to treat 1T more lightly
than 1 could find it in my heart to do. She
thought it far too pretty to hide its light in a
bureau drawer, and after time wore it,
thinking that in that way it might be possibly
seen and claimed by its owner.
We had become very intimate in girls
fashion before l introduced Kate to "my
DOCTOR" as 1 called him in my heart. They
"took kindly" to each other, but she did not
at once begin to vile the heart of him, as l
had seen her do with all other men.
| Why don't you make love to DR.. Gil
more ?' 1 asked her at last. +" You are natu-
rally fisher of men, and the prey is very
scarce at Doyecotes." ..
FIRSTLY" said Kate, "because you al.
ready have him in your own net, and unless
all signs fail you will soon land him. Secondly,
he is too fearfully old and grave. 1 don't
mean that he has lived any great number of
years, but he is one of those who are born
forty years old, and that would make him at
this present time about threescore and tens
My world was well-nigh empty of kth and
kin when Aunt Esther died, but l was not
nearly so dOleiul as ought to have been. !
had very little money, but 1 had youth and
hope, and there was-the doctor. Kate Pur-
dy had been helping me to set the house in
order after the dreadful hustle that follows
the vanishing of familiar face.
At night-fall she had left me alone for an
hour or two; it was then, as Kate and had
tacitly supposed, reading it in one anOther's
eyes, that "my DOCTOR came to see me.
| I'm afraid you're going to be very lonely
here" he said, after the first greetings were
/ over.
''But shall not be here /; 1 am going to live
with the Purdys."
care you quite sure they want you?"
''They say So"
| Doubtless they feel in that way now, but
their hearts are warmed by the sight of your
affection. You had far better come home to
me-"
He held out his arms, with gesture that
beled the calmness ofhis words, but would
not see it.
'How can be sure that you want me ?'
'Do not say it?"
'"Yes, and so do the Purdys. 1t may be that
your heart is warmed by my loneliness"
"What is the use of fencing, when / love
yo,, au1 Won lnro mo o,1