“‘And now I fear we are too late. Oh, that I had come last night!’
“‘Calm yourself,’ said Mr Ross. ‘It may be that I could do no more than your regular attendant.’
“‘Don’t tell me, sir!’ exclaimed the father angrily. ‘My child has been neglected—shamefully neglected. That man came to my house last night from some public dinner, and I feel sure now, though I did not detect it then, that he was ignorant of what he was doing. But quick, sir, follow me!’
“In another minute John Ross was in the chamber before the little sufferer, lying pale and wasted upon its weeping mother’s knees. For a moment the young surgeon was almost unmanned, when, looking to him as her last hope, the weeping woman raised her red eyes, and joined her hands supplicatingly, as if to say, ‘Oh, save—oh, save my child!’
“Wealth was there, glancing from every article of furniture in the handsome room, but the cold grim shade that visits the palace with the same stern justice as the lowly cottage, seemed to be also there waiting for a few brief moments ere he claimed his own.
“For a moment John Ross thought he was too late, and his brow knit with disappointment; but the next instant he drew a long breath, and as if nerving himself to the struggle with the destroyer, he threw off his coat, knelt down, and softly lifted one blue lid, to gaze in the contracted pupil of the child’s eye, and listened to its faint, sighing breath.
“‘Cold water—towels—vinegar,’ he then said, in quick, firm tones. ‘Now brandy. What have you there, arrowroot? Yes; good. Now the brandy—quick!’
“Father and servants flew to execute his commands, and in a few seconds the tightly-closed lips were parted, and with difficulty a little brandy and arrowroot was swallowed. Towels saturated with vinegar and water were wrapped round the little golden head, and extemporising a fan from an open book, the young surgeon placed the father at his child’s head to keep up a sharp agitation of the air, and ran himself to throw open the window.
“Directly after he was back, and watching the child with an earnestness barely equalled by its parents, as at intervals he spoke, after drawing out his watch and referring to it from time to time.
“‘Look,’ he said, in short, peremptory tones: ‘the eyes are unclosing, the pupils dilate already, there is a little more pulsation—that sigh was stronger. Keep up the fanning, sir; now another towel, and colder water.’