Our first-fruits may be immature, unripe, but to us they have a goodly flavour, a subtle, sweet aroma of their own. All through his successful life Dr. Luttrell will look back to this evening as the turning-point of his career, when; he stood cold and tired watching Martha's bellows, and his wife's voice with a triumphant ring in it had called to him from the threshold.
Marcus's first piece of good luck had so absorbed them that it was some time before Olivia remembered to tell him about Aunt Madge's present. Marcus forgot to go on with his tea when he saw the little heap of coins in his wife's hand. Martha's wages, Dot's pelisse, and even the gloves and new hat-trimming were all duly canvassed. When Marcus said, abruptly, "Aunt Madge is a trump," his glistening eyes were eloquent enough. They had so much to discuss that it was nearly bedtime before he offered to go on with the book he was reading aloud, but after all they were neither in the mood for other people's stories.
In youth life is so interesting. No chapters of past memories, no wide experiences are so beguiling and absorbing. "Oh, we lived then." How often we hear that phrase, as the old man looks back over a long life, to the time when lad's love filled his days with sunshine.
When Marcus lay awake that night there was no deadly coldness at his heart, no lurking demon of despondency, waiting for the small dark hours to assail him. On the contrary, hope with seraph wings fanned him blissfully. Marcus Luttrell was young, but he was no coward. For two years he had waited patiently until the tide should turn. "Wait till the clouds roll by," he used to say, cheerily, but only his wife guessed how he was really losing heart, as day after day and month after month passed and no paying patients presented themselves at the corner house at Galvaston Terrace.
Olivia was at the window the following morning with Dot in her arms. As Dr. Luttrell, with his shabby black bag crossed the road, he looked back once, and Dot kissed her dimpled hand to him. Olivia, who admired her husband with all her honest girlish heart, watched eagerly until the slight, well-built figure passed between the stone lions.
"If he were only a little older-looking," she thought, regretfully, but his smooth face and fair hair gave him a boyish look.
It was absurd, of course, but she could settle to nothing until he came back; but Marcus, who had a bad accident case on his mind, was in too great a hurry to satisfy his wife's curiosity. "The foot was going on as well as he expected, but Mr. Gaythorne was unable to leave his bed. He was going again in the evening, and now he must be off to the model lodging-house to see if the poor fellow had pulled through the night."
Olivia had planned out her morning. She had her marketing to do, and her purchases to make. Then it was only right to go round and tell Aunt Madge of the wonderful piece of good fortune that had befallen them.
Mrs. Broderick was unfeignedly pleased. "Still, Olive," she remarked, with commendable prudence, "one swallow does not make a summer."
"No, Aunt Madge, of course not; but, as Marcus says, one patient brings others. Galvaston House is a big place, and when the neighbours see him going in and out, it will be a sort of testimonial; besides, I shall quote Deb's favourite proverb, 'Every mickle makes a muckle.' Now I really must go, for I want to cut out Dot's pelisse."