West Lawn, and The rector of St. Mark's

by Mary Jane Holmes

And then came the story of her interview with John, who had proved himself so noble and good.

“Yes, I know; he came from you to me!” the doctor replied, and into Dora’s eyes there crept a bashful, frightened look, as she wondered if John had said to Richard what he did to her.

He had in part, viz., that he wished matters to proceed just as if he had never thought of marrying Dora; that as soon as she was able he would like to see her the doctor’s wife, and then if there were no objections on the part of either, he would like to have her remain at Beechwood awhile, at least until he could make some other arrangement for his children.

“I told him you might,” Richard said, as he imprisoned the hand which was raised to remonstrate. “I said I knew you would be willing to stay, and that I should like my new boarding-place very much; and now nothing remains but for you to get well as fast as possible, for the moment the doctor pronounces you convalescent you are to be his wife. Do you understand?”

He did not tell her then of the plan which was maturing, and for the furtherance of which Robert was sent away, viz., the purchase of the homestead whose loss Dora had so much deplored.

There was an opening in the town for a new physician, the doctor had ascertained; and though he would dislike to leave his many friends in Beechwood, still, for Dora’s sake, he could do so, and he had sent Robert to open negotiations with the present proprietor of the place once owned by Colonel Freeman, and for which there was ample means to pay in the sum brought by the prodigal from the mines of California.

But this was a secret until something definite was known, and Richard willingly acceded to the Squire’s proposition that he and Dora should remain there until something was devised for the children.

Of this Dora was not much inclined to talk, and as she was tired and excited, the doctor left her at last, stopping on his way from the house to look at little Daisy, whom Jessie held in her lap, and who seemed feverish and sick. The doctor did not then say what he feared, but when later in the day he came again, the child’s symptoms had developed so rapidly, that he had no hesitancy in pronouncing it the scarlet fever, then prevailing to an alarming extent in an adjoining town.

Squire Russell had thought his cup full to overflowing, but in his anxiety for Daisy, he forgot his recent disappointment, and, as a father and mother both, nursed his suffering child, assisted by Jessie, whose services there, as elsewhere, were invaluable. It was indeed a house of mourning, and for weeks a dark cloud brooded over it as one after another, Ben and Burt, Letitia and Jim, were prostrate with the disease which Daisy had been the first to take, and from which she slowly recovered. When Letitia was smitten down Jessie was filled with remorse, for she remembered what she had said of the quiet child, and with a sister’s tenderness she nursed the little girl, who would take her medicine from no one else. From the first Ben and Burt were not very ill, but for a time it seemed doubtful which would gain the mastery, life or death, in the cases of Letitia and Jim. With regard to Letitia that question was soon settled, and one October morning Jessie put gently back upon the pillow the child who had died in her lap, kissing her the last of all ere she went the dark road already trodden by the mother, who in life would have chosen anybody else than Jessie Verner to have soothed the last moments of her little girl.

But Jessie’s work was not yet done, and while the sad procession went on its way to the village graveyard, where Margaret was lying, she sat by Jimmie’s side fanning his feverish cheeks, and carefully administering the medicines which were no longer of avail.