Nance! was she not always in my mind, my heart? Was there ever a time, which the business of the moment did not demand, that I was not building a thousand fancies of her? I was yet childlike enough to imagine myself saving her life from some dangerous disease, telling her dramatically of my passion, and, in the end, receiving the reward of her hand. Aye, what dreams men dare to build!
My practise had so grown with the coming of winter that I did not get to see as much of her as I should have liked, but when I could I sought her and always found her my splendid, true friend. Yet some mysterious and inexpressible something in her personality and bearing withheld me, so, while she was all that was friendly, there was still a more sacred portal closed to me. What her inclinations and ambitions were I could not discover, save that she was diligently pursuing the study of folk-lore while showing a special interest in my patients. This was markedly so when any of them needed a womanly touch not to be found in their homes. Against my protest she nursed three severe cases entirely through to convalescence. The motherless child of Martin Farewil she brought through double pneumonia; old Sarah Boutwell, a widow, childless and seventy-six, after a lingering spell of fever, died in her arms; Elizabeth Book, a servant living alone on the outskirts of town, gave birth to a bastard, and would have suffered inhumanly from inattention had Nance, to the horror of Oldmeadow and the prostration of Aunt Barbara, not spent the greater part of a month with the woman.
Notwithstanding this task she had chosen she was just as much alive and as merry as of old. With it all she was becoming more serious and considerate. In fact the care-free, hoydenish girl seemed to have ripened into a strong-hearted, wholesome, healthful woman. She showed an unusual grasp of things, her relation to them, and their value to life. Her humor saved her from taking this new attitude too seriously.
Old Doctor Felix Longstreet, her immortal grandfather, now retired from active practise, had joined the autocratic group of cracker-barrel philosophers. Daily he hobbled with rheumatic legs over the flagstones, bowing gallantly to the women whom he passed, to my office, where he still maintained a desk. There, upon the sidewalk beneath the shade of the honey-locust trees in summer, by the fireplace in winter, he gave many charming dissertations upon politics, fishing, religion, when-I-was-a-boy, and medicine. God bless him for one of the finest gentlemen I ever knew.
Strange to say, Monsieur l'Abbé Jacques Picot had not returned with September to his house of many pillars. Ever since anybody could remember each Maytime found the good Abbé bound for some other lands; each September, just as regularly as the children were gathered to school, found him again at home. We could always tell of his presence, for once each day he might be seen making his way through Oldmeadow bowing to right and left with easy grace, as he sought the river road for the outing he never failed to take, no matter what might be the condition of the weather. As a consequence, in the late afternoons of fall and winter, his figure, dressed with scrupulous neatness in the garb of a priest, wearing a broad-brimmed soft hat, became quite familiar to the dwellers in Oldmeadow. And while the dates of his annual leave-taking and return were not fixed, it was unusual for him to remain away into the new year. We were ignorant of the cause of his absence, which served on more occasions than one as a topic for conversation.
As for Jean François, of course he never came near us at all in winter. Some more gentle climate claimed his blessed presence with his happy caravan. Upon his return with Nance in June he had not remained in town more than a week. Just where he spent the remainder of the months he was accustomed to give to Oldmeadow common was another thing of which we were ignorant.
Thus while I sat dreaming of my heart's desire, there came a crunching of the snow, a hearty bursting open of the door, and Nance came stamping into the room followed by Doctor Longstreet puffing like a porpoise. I helped them off with their wraps, placed chairs at the coziest corners of the hearth, threw on a fresh backlog, gave the doctor a little nip of Bourbon, and sat down as close to Nance as the occasion would permit.
"The old house is lighted up," said the Doctor. "I suspect Monsieur l'Abbé has returned."
"Well, I'm glad," said I. "I wonder what has kept him so long?"
"That is what we came by to tell you about," was his answer. Here he cleared his throat ostentatiously. I knew what was coming.