consider and relieve. Dr. Dobrée had often sneered and made merry at my
high-flown notions of honor and duty; but in our practice at home he had
given me no opportunities of trying them. He had attended all our
younger and more attractive patients himself, and had handed over to my
care all the old people and children--on Julia's account, he had said,
laughing.

Tardif's mother came to us as we entered the house. She was a little,
ugly woman, stone deaf, as I knew of old. Yet in some mysterious way she
could make out her son's deep voice, when he shouted into her ear. He
did not speak now, however, but made dumb signs as if to ask how all was
going on. She answered by a silent nod, and beckoned me to follow her
into an inner room, which opened out of the kitchen.

It was a small, crowded room, with a ceiling so low, it seemed to rest
upon the four posts of the bedstead. There were of course none of the
little dainty luxuries about it with which I was familiar in my mother's
bedroom. A long, low window opposite the head of the bed threw a strong
light upon it. There were check curtains drawn round it, and a
patchwork-quilt, and rough, homespun linen. Every thing was clean, but
coarse and frugal--such as I expected to find about my Sark patient, in
the home of a fisherman.

But when my eye fell upon the face resting on the rough pillow I paused
involuntarily, only just controlling an explanation of surprise. There
was absolutely nothing in the surroundings to mark her as a lady, yet I
felt in a moment that she was one. There lay a delicate, refined face,
white as the linen, with beautiful lips almost as white; and a mass of
light, shining, silky hair tossed about the pillow; and large dark-gray
eyes gazing at me beseechingly, with an expression that made my heart