"She has none. Doctor Brown said she once told him so: none nearer than the Brithwoods of the Mythe—and we know what the Brithwoods are."
A young gentleman and his young wife—proverbially the gayest, proudest, most light-hearted of all our country families.
"Nay, Phineas, I will not have you trouble yourself. And after all, they are mere strangers—mere strangers. Come, sit down to breakfast."
But he could not eat. He could not talk of ordinary things. Every minute he fell into abstractions. At length he said, suddenly:
"Phineas, I do think it is wicked, downright wicked, for a doctor to be afraid of telling a patient he is going to die—more wicked, perhaps, to keep the friends in ignorance until the last stunning blow falls. She ought to be told: she must be told: she may have many things to say to her poor father. And God help her! for such a stroke she ought to be a little prepared. It might kill her else!"
He rose up and walked about the room. The seal once taken from his reserve, he expressed himself to me freely, as he had used to do—perhaps because at this time his feelings required no disguise. The dreams which might have peopled that beautiful sunset wood necessarily faded in an atmosphere like this—filled with the solemn gloom of impending death.
At last he paused in his hurried walk, quieted, perhaps, by what he might have read in my ever-following eyes.
"I know you are as grieved as I am, Phineas. What can we do? Let us forget that they are strangers, and act as one Christian ought to another. Do YOU not think she ought to be told?"
"Most decidedly. They might get further advice."
"That would be vain. Dr. Brown says it is a hopeless case, has been so for long; but he would not believe it, nor have his daughter told. He clings to life desperately. How horrible for her!"