The Girl at Cobhurst

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
1898
It was about the middle of a March afternoon when Dr. Tolbridge, giving his horse and buggy into the charge of his stable boy, entered the warm hall of his house. His wife was delighted to see him; he had not been at home since noon of the preceding day.
Yes, said he, as he took off his gloves and overcoat, the Pardell boy is better, but I found him in a desperate condition.
I knew that, said Mrs. Tolbridge, when you told me in your note that you would be obliged to stay with him all night.
The doctor now walked into his study, changed his overcoat for a well-worn smoking-jacket, and seated himself in an easy chair before the fire. His wife sat by him.
Thank you, he said, in answer to her inquiries, but I do not want anything to eat. After I had gone my round this morning I went back to the Pardells, and had my dinner there. The boy is doing very well. No, I was not up all night. I had some hours' sleep on the big sofa.
Which doesn't count for much, said his wife.
It counts for some hours, he replied, and Mrs. Pardell did not sleep at all.
Dr. Tolbridge, a man of moderate height, and compactly built, with some touches of gray in his full, short beard, and all the light of youth in his blue eyes, had been for years the leading physician in and about Thorbury. He lived on the outskirts of the little town, but the lines of his practice extended in every direction into the surrounding country.
The doctor's wife was younger than he was; she had a high opinion of him, and had learned to diagnose him, mentally, morally, and physically, with considerable correctness. It may be asserted, in fact, that the doctor seldom made a diagnosis of a patient as exact as those she made of him. But then it must be remembered that she had only one person to exert her skill upon, while he had many.