"My poor child!" said the doctor, in the kindest manner imaginable. "You should not have come yourself at this hour. It was hardly safe. Why,—you have run yourself completely out of breath. Come in, while they are putting my horse in the buggy. I must give you some medicine before we start."
He stooped down and almost lifted me from the step where I was seated, and led me into what appeared to me quite a sumptuous apartment, being handsomely carpeted and having long crimson curtains to the windows. He made me sit down on a sofa, while he went to a closet, and pouring out a generous glass of wine, insisted upon my drinking it. I obeyed him mechanically, for life seemed glowing in the ruddy fluid. It was. It came back in warmth to my chilled and sinking heart. I felt it stealing like a gentle fire through my whole system,—burning gently, steadily on my cheek, and kindling into light my heavy and tear-dimmed eyes. It was the first glass I had ever tasted, and it ran like electricity through my veins. Had the doctor been aware of my previous abstinence, he might not have thought it safe to have offered me the brimming glass. Had I reflected one moment I should have swallowed it less eagerly; but I seemed sinking, sinking into annihilation, when its reviving warmth restored me. I felt as if I had wings, and could fly over the dreary space my weary feet had so lately overcome.
"You feel better, my dear," said the doctor, with a benevolent smile, as he watched the effect of his prescription. "You must not make so dangerous an experiment again as running such a distance at this time of night. Peggy's life is very precious, I dare say, and so is yours. Are you ready to ride? My buggy is not very large, but I think it will accommodate us both. We will see."
Though it was the first time I had ever spoken with Dr. Harlowe, I felt as much confidence in his kindness and benevolence as if I had known him for years. There was something so frank and genial about him, he seemed, like the wine I had been quaffing, warming to the heart. There was barely room for me, slender as I was, for the carriage was constructed for the accommodation of the doctor alone; but I did not feel embarrassed, or as if I were intruding. He drove very rapidly, conversing the whole time in a pleasant, cheering voice.
"Peggy must be a very valuable person," he said, "for you to venture out so bravely in her cause. We must cure her, by all means."
I expatiated on her virtues with all the eloquence of gratitude. Something must have emboldened my shy tongue,—something more than the hope, born of the doctor's heart-reviving words.
"He is come—he is come," I exclaimed, springing from the buggy to the threshold, with the quickness of lightning.
Oh! how dim and sickly and sad every thing appeared in that little chamber! I turned and looked at the doctor, wondering if he had ever entered one so sad before. Peggy lay in an uneasy slumber, her arms thrown above her head, in a wild, uncomfortable attitude. My mother sat leaning against the head of the bed, pale and statue-like, with her hand, white as marble, partly hidden in her dark and loosely braided hair. The doctor glanced at the bed, then at my mother, and his glance riveted on her. Surprise warmed into admiration,—admiration stood checked by reverence. He advanced a few steps into the room, and made her as lowly a bow as if she were an empress. She rose without speaking and motioned me to hand him a chair; but waiving the offered civility, he went up to the side of the bed and laid his fingers quietly on the pulse of his patient. He stood gravely counting the ticking of life's great chronometer, while my mother leaned forward with pale, parted lips, and I gazed upon him as if the issues of life and death were in his hands.
"I wish I had been called sooner," said he, with a slight contraction of the brows, "but we will do all we can to relieve her."
He called for a basin and linen bandage, and taking a lancet from his pocket, held up the sharp, gleaming point to the light. I shuddered, I had never seen any one bled, and it seemed to me an awful operation.