The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1893-05-24


void in his life, us every man must have
who with uneXhausted strength steps
out Of the great race, but each Of his So
ciety might help to fill up that Of his
neighbOr. 1t is true that they had no.
much in common, but that is sometime
an aid rather than q bar to friendship.
Each had been an enthusiast in his pro-
fessi0n and had retained all his interest
in it.
The doctor still read from cover to
cover his Lancet and his Medical Jour
nal, attended all professional gatherings,
worked himself into an alternate state Of
exaltation and depression over the re-
suits of the election Of officers and re-
served for himself a den Of his own, i'll
which before rows Of little round bot
ties full Of glycerin, Canadian balsam
and staining agents he still cut sections
with micrOtomo and peeped through
his long brass old fashioned microscope
at the arcana Of nature. With his typ
ical face, clean shaver on lip and chin,
with firm mouth, strong jaw, q
steady eye and two little white flu1fs Of
whiskers, he could never be taken for
anything but what he was-a high class
British medical consultant Of the age Of
so, or perhaps just a year or two older.
The doctor in his heyday had been
cool over great things, but now in his re-
tirement he was fussy over trifes. The
man who had operated without the quiz
cr Of a finger when not only his patients
life but his own reputation and future
were at stake was now shaken to the
soul by mislaid book or a careless maid
He remarked it himself and knew the
reason. when Mary was alive" he
would say, "she stood between me and
the little troubles. Icould brace myself
for the big ones. My girls are as good
as girls can be, but who can know Il man
as his wife knows him?" Then his mem
Dry would conjure up tuft Of brown
hair and q single white, thin hand over q
coverlet, and he would feel as we have
all felt-that if we do not live @nd know
each other after death then indeed we
are tricked and betrayed by all the high
est hopes and subtlest intuitiOns Of our
nature.
The doctor had his colnpensltions to
make up for his loss. The great scales
of fate had been held on level for him,
for where in all great London could one
find two sWeeter girls, more loving, more
intelligent and more sympathetic than
Clara and Ida Walker? So bright We're
they, so quick, so interested III all which
interested him, that If it were possible
for a man to be compensated for the loss
of a good wife then Balthazar Walker
might claim to be SO.
Clara was tall AID thin and supple,
with a graceful, Eromanly figure. There
WAS something stately and distinguished
in her carriage 'queenly" her friends
called her, while her critics described
her as reserved and distant. Such as it
herself, for she WAS and had always from
her childhood been different from any one
around her. There was nothing grcgaEi-
GUS in her nature She thought with her
own mind, saw with her own eyes. acted
from her own impulse. Her face WIS
pale-striking rather than pretty -but
with two great dark eyes. SO earnestly
questioning, SO quick IN tAcir transitions
froW joy to pathos, so swift III their COM
met upon every word and deed around
her-th0ae eyes alone were g.: mary
more attractive than all tHt beauty of
her younger sister Hess v,os y strong,
quiet soul. and it Was her i.rN hand
which had taken over the dates Of her
mother, had ordered the house, restrained