Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1885-09-07

railing off the low, white brow in nat
nral waves, with brilliant, hazel-brown
eyes, and small, fine features, among
which was mouth whose rosy lips
parted over teeth like seed pearls.
She very seldom smiled: she was
grave little body, intent in her beau
ty, a farmers daughter, brought up
to work, brought up to be a lady, too,
with good, common school educa-
ton and simple manners.
Often when the doctor returned
from his visits he left his study and
went out into her little sitting room.
where the fire was bright and the
hearth was clean, and sat down there
to have glass of milk and bit of
gingerbread, and to speak first of
some household matter, and afterward
of some patient; and presently he
found himself discussing his most
perplexing case with her, and deriy-
ing more or less benefit from her dis
interested common sense.
Somehow this brief rest in the lit
tie sitting-room became to him very
pleasant, and, learning more every
day, Dolly loved to listen. Often,
when her cheek flushed, and her
brown eyes lighted with interest, the
doctor would say to himself
"By Jove! what pretty creature
she is Why wasn't she born in some
other station of life?"
And again, when out in cold and
stormy night, he would find himself
hurrying to his horse, and plcturing
the pleasure of seat by the fire op-
posite Dorothy. And then again he
was saying:
''Confound the station of life A
perfect woman nobly planned is sta
ton in life herself"
And one night, as he looked over
at her, sitting opposite, demurely
darning on a table-cloth there, he
wondered why he should not cross
over and sit beside her. Still he said
nothing of all this thinking; he was
not swift man at speaking his pur-
pose formed slowly.
If only women could be patient
What had it been to pretty Dorothy
these evening hours, this familiar
talk, these friendly words, these long
sentences, illumined only by flashing
glances? He never knew.
One day he came home and found
an angular spinster in pretty Doro.
thy's place. Miss Merle had engag
ed her, she said; and Dorothy was
nowhere to be seen. 1t was of nc
use for everything to rush over DR.
Tredickar then, in one torrent of re-
membranes and thunderbolt of de.
Observation-Disclosures of all hel
sweetness and sense, of all her charm
and delight-decision of long-falter.
ing purpose.
1t was of no use for him to rage
and imagine vain things; nobody
knew anything of Dorothy, an6
search as he might, far and near
high and low, in all his acquaintance
with the countryside, neither he ol
anybody else came across any trace
of her.
DR.. Tredickar, for some reason o.
other, discarded his little dark pills
now, but he plunged back into hi
business with sort of madness. III,
tried to forget himself in killing o
curing he never looked at a woman
except from a scientific point of view
he never spoke to his spinster if h
could help 1t; he studied as if his lif
depended upon it; practice he hat
been on the point of surrendering t.
the new doctor he retained, and h'
rode far into the night to exactins
people on outlying farms, and was NJ
at daybreak for his laboratory ex
periments and books he forgot t.
eat and he was unable TO sleep.
Of course, such devotion to worl
had it's own reward in one way, 70
Mr.. Tredickar was becoming a com
fortably rich man for a country prac
titioner, and was reaping rich har
vest of fame, that was, however, a
worthless to him as was the breath o
the idlest breeze.
And so one year followed anothe
till twenty had slipped away, and th
babies to whom he had given thei
first bolus had babies of their own
and fevers and consumptions, am
amputations, and autopsies filled u
the measure of his days, and ther
seemed to DR.. Tredickar nothin,
worth living for; and worn with work
irregular food, unhealthy hurries
sympathies, disgusts, fatigues, on
morning DR.. Tredickar discovere'
that he was without appetite, withou
strength, without hope or wish, look
ing on the world as mass of dis
ease, and saw with hardly surprise o
regret that there was no health il
him.
DIR. Tredickar had scarcely the en-
ergy left to set about curing himself
he really did not care. He took on
little dose and another, and would no
have taken them if his aged spinste
had not set them by his plate. A
he looked about his dull and desolat
home he thought that this was th'
time when a man needed a wife t
cheer him, and cursed himself for no
| think inu of Ii twenty wears AOO.