'He must be crazy.' 'Did he drink much after dinner?' 'I say, you have been here longer than I have, have you ever seen him so before?' Then a giggle, and some one saying: 'Is he married?'
'Sabina, ain't you ashamed to laugh?'—'poor thing—won't stay—gallows'—then silence, and in a few minutes one after another of the visitors passed by under the window on tip-toe, and almost immediately a soft knock and a pause. I thought * * * and acted.
'Come in,' said I, in one of those gentle and subdued voices that no one but a passionate man can possess. The door gradually opened, and there stood Susan, the devoted aunt.
I had placed a volume of engravings before my eyes, and was busily engaged in drawing some plan, on paper, as she entered. I went on for a little while in silence, when she said:
'I understood, sir——'
I said 'wait a minute,' and went on ruling one entire side, with double lines, in perfect forgetfulness of her presence.
When she spoke again, 'Did you send for me, sir?' I would have answered at once, for I felt awfully at appearing such a tyro; but the case was a desperate one of long standing, and required heroic treatment. I kept her waiting, at first as a lesson, that her imagination might take wings and fly to the uttermost realms of unhappiness. The second time, I thought I detected a little impatience in her voice, so I said, taking a pen and dipping it in red ink, 'wait one moment, Susan,' and went on lining and interlining. This was not reading, studying, nor writing; it was what she very well knew I could do any time. So it told on her. Each moment her valor oozed out, and as soon as I felt that the cup of bitterness was pretty well drained, I proceeded to offer up this victim as a sacrifice to peace.
'Susan, how is your sister's child?'
I looked straight into her. There was no sternness or smartness in my expression, but the gaze was mathematical. I was measuring her candor, and analyzing her mind.
She colored up and said, 'he's no better, sir; and they've given him up: but the doctor says good nursing will do wonders.'