i, 
 
 -6 
 
 ACh' 
 I4O r 
 S.CMS
 
 His COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 BY 
 
 MINNIE WILLIS BAINES, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE SILENT I,AND." 
 
 CINCINNATI : 
 CRANSTON & STO\VE 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 HUNT & EATON. 
 
 1891.
 
 Copyrifrht 
 
 BY CRANSTON & STOWE. 
 1881.
 
 3\EAR READER, I have not undertaken 
 
 ^ in this book a complete refutation of the 
 doctrine known as "Christian Science," 
 but have endeavored to show how, through 
 its own innumerable inconsistencies, it refutes 
 itself; also to prove, by its avowed articles of 
 faith, the impossibility of being, at one and 
 the same time, a logical Christian Scientist 
 and a Bible Christian. 
 
 The principal aim of my argument is to 
 convince thoughtless Christians, who have em- 
 braced this "science" in the belief that its 
 teachings lead to a higher Christian life, that, 
 on the contrary, they tend toward the rejec- 
 tion of Christ and the Holy Scriptures, toward 
 the destruction of man's belief in the resur- 
 rection of the individual from the dead, and 
 his eternal existence as a glorified spirit in 
 the companionship of Christ and his risen 
 saints. M. W. B. 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, o., 1891. 3 
 
 2061743
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " PAGE. 
 
 DOCTOR SARAH KATHERINB SPENCER, CHRISTIAN 
 
 SCIENTIST, 7 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 FRANCIS BARTLETT, ATTORNEY AND COUNSELOR, . . 20 
 
 CHAPTER HL 
 MOODS/. . . 27 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 SUPPOSED RIVALS, 38 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 OFF FOR A DAY'S FISHING, ............ 45 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 A DISCUSSION IN THE BOAT ....,", 55 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 THE EPPERTS AND THEIR SICK CHILD, 77 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 94 
 
 5
 
 6 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 AUNT HARRIET AND SADIE, no 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 AN EPISODE AT MRS. GLOVER'S, 123 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 SECOND VISIT TO THE EPPERTS, 138 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 ANOTHER CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST, 151 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 SADIE RENOUNCES CHRISTIAN SCIENCE, 172 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Aw, 's WELI/ THAT ENDS WEU,, 184
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 I- 
 
 FRANCIS BARTLETT, ESQ., had just 
 
 returned, somewhat unexpectedly as to 
 the exact train, from a six months' stay in 
 the " far West." This stay had not been 
 altogether a trip for sight-seeing purposes and 
 the acquisition of topographical knowledge, 
 nor yet for the proving of a land claim which 
 was in dispute ; but it was a composite affair 
 which blended the trio of designs, and had 
 consumed more time than he had intended to 
 dispose of in this manner. 
 
 He had arrived on an evening train, about 
 an hour too late for tea at his mother's hos- 
 pitable table ; but after that delighted lady 
 had embraced him again and again, and cried 
 over him as she did n't do when he went 
 away (women are strange creatures), she re- 
 membered that he must be hungry, and gave 
 elaborate orders to the girl for an appetizing 
 supper to be speedily brought in. 
 
 Mr. Bartlett did ample justice to the meal. 
 
 7
 
 8 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 His digestion was good, and for the last few 
 weeks lie had been roughing it in a Rocky 
 Mountain iron camp, where the chef cPceuvre 
 of the chef was saleratus biscuit, sometimes 
 supplemented by side-meat. 
 
 As he drained his tea-cup for the second 
 time, and finished the last crumb of a gen- 
 erous section of rich cake, he exclaimed, with 
 real fervor: 
 
 "I'm glad to be back, mother. Nobody 
 ever cooks like a fellow's own mother and the 
 servants she trains." 
 
 " I made that cake myself, Frank. Nora 's 
 rather slow about learning to make good 
 cake," said Mrs. Bartlett, pleased with the 
 praise of her idolized son. 
 
 "Everything going on as usual at home? 
 How 's Sadie ? Where is she ?" 
 
 Mrs. Bartlett pursed up her lips, and mys- 
 teriously answered : 
 
 "There isn't any Sadie. Sadie's gone." 
 
 "Gone?" 
 
 Francis Bartlett looked blankly at his 
 mother, and his face seemed to have turned a 
 shade paler as he looked. 
 
 She nodded, and her expression was full 
 of the importance of some knowledge which 
 she was withholding from him.
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 9 
 
 " Pldase do n't be mysterious, mother ; I 
 never did like mystery. Where has she gone ? 
 She certainly is n't dead, or you would have 
 let me know." 
 
 "No, not dead. Sadie has vanished into 
 the past. There is a young lady residing 
 here now, known to the town as Dr. Sarah 
 Katherine Spencer. She is n't in, just now ; 
 she 's lecturing over at the G. A. R. Hall, this 
 evening, on Theosophy. Her last lecture was 
 on Occultism." 
 
 Mrs. Bartlett, having fired this unexpected 
 shot, sat back, and looked at her son tri- 
 umphantly. 
 
 "Theosophy! Sadie!!" 
 
 These were the only words he could utter, 
 in his astonished bewilderment. 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Bartlett, demurely, "and 
 her next is on Esoteric Buddhism." 
 
 Mr. Bartlett leaned back, and burst into a 
 loud, contemptuous laugh. 
 
 " Sadie !" ejaculated he. " Why, she knows 
 about as much on those subjects as our Mal- 
 tese kitten." 
 
 "You may think that, privately, but it 
 would take nerve on your part to tell her so. 
 You 've been gone six months, Francis. Dur- 
 ing three of those months, Sarah Katherine
 
 10 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 attended lectures and studied books. Now 
 she is a full-fledged Christian Scientist and 
 Mental Healer, instructing ' the heathen which 
 sit in darkness.' " 
 
 " Christian Scientist ! Why, I did n't know 
 Sadie had ever been converted ! When did it 
 happen?" 
 
 "Well, as to that, she doesn't profess that 
 she ever has been. She says a great many 
 most, indeed of the healers are Christians, 
 but others are not ; and that it is n't at all 
 necessary." 
 
 "Well, it strikes me," answered he, a little 
 severely, "that Miss Sadie is putting profane 
 hands on a holy ark." 
 
 "Um-m," commented Mrs. Bartlett, in a 
 non-committal way, scenting, with delight, 
 from afar off, the inevitable coming battle be- 
 tween her son Francis and Dr. Sarah Kath- 
 erine Spencer. 
 
 "You called her ( doctor,' " said he, presently ; 
 "did you mean that she actually attempts to 
 cure sick people?" 
 
 "Nothing less than that." 
 
 They had pushed back their chairs from 
 the table, and Nora had come in to clear away 
 the dishes and remove the cloth. She was 
 proceeding with her duties, as Mr. Bart-
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. II 
 
 lett remarked : " She does n't succeed, of 
 course ?" 
 
 "Ask Nora," replied his mother. 
 
 Thus adjured, he turned his attention to 
 the pretty little servant, who blushed rosy-red 
 under his glance. 
 
 "Well, Nora," said he, "have you been 
 sick, and has Miss Spencer doctored you and 
 cured you?" 
 
 "Indeed, sir, and she did, then," stam- 
 mered she. 
 
 "What was the matter? Anything 
 serious?" 
 
 "Indeed, sir, my head did ache me awful 
 one day, and I asked her could she give me 
 something that would make it quit ; then she 
 came, and sat down in the kitchen by the 
 window, and began to talk to me that pleas- 
 ant about everything else, that I 'most forgot 
 about it ; only once in awhile it would be that 
 bad I could n't help telling her about it again, 
 and asking her to cure it?" 
 
 "And what did she say, Nora?" 
 
 "Well, sir, she sat up there in that splint- 
 bottomed rocking-chair, in her white sailor- 
 blouse and blue skirt, and just smiled at me. 
 Then she said, solemn like: 'Nora Brown, 
 you 're not sick you are not sick !' "
 
 I a HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 "How did that, seem to make you feel? 
 better?" 
 
 Nora laughed. 
 
 "It made me kinder mad at first. I says 
 to her that I thought I oughter know whether 
 I was sick or not, and that my- mother used 
 to have headaches like this ; but if she did n't 
 want to cure me, she need n't mind it." - 
 
 "And what did she say to that?" 
 
 " Why, sir, she stopped smiling right away, 
 and she said, sorter serious : ' I know you think 
 you 're sick, Nora, but you must not think so 
 any longer ; for sickness is sin, and ' " Here 
 Nora broke off suddenly, saying: "You must 
 excuse me, Mr. Francis, but I can not remem- 
 ber all her big words. I know she said some- 
 thing about its being a 'state of inharmony,' 
 and" 
 
 "She told you there was 'only a seeming 
 law of heredity and contagion in the natural 
 soul,' did n't she ?" asked Mrs. Bartlett. 
 
 "Yes, ma'am. And she said something 
 about seeming sickness being a punishment 
 for either individual or universal sin, and that 
 it was wicked to be sick. That of course I 
 was not sick, but I must say to myself that I 
 was well ; because ( all that is not of love is 
 of self.' "
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 13 
 
 "What did she mean by that, Nora?" asked 
 Mr. Francis. 
 
 " I did n't quite sense it," replied the girl ; 
 "but she said, after a bit: 'It is only seeming. 
 You must say, I am well ! and then, presently, 
 your head will not ache.' " 
 
 "Well, did it work, Nora?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed, sir. I kept saying it all that 
 day, and the next day, in the afternoon, my 
 head-ache was all gone." 
 
 "A remarkable cure," said Mr. Francis; and 
 as Nora, questioned no further, carried out the 
 tray containing the debris of the meal, the 
 young man turned to his mother, and said: 
 
 "Why didn't you write to me about this?" 
 
 "You know why, Frank. Sadie is self- 
 willed, and of age. It would have done no 
 good, and you might have written her some- 
 thing she would have resented, and there 
 would have been a breach between you, which 
 would have been unnecessary." 
 
 "Sly, cunning, maneuvering mamma!" said 
 he, playfully. " I think you might as well 
 'name his name, and let half his face be seen 
 through the lion's neck, and tell them plainly, 
 he is Snug, the joiner.' " 
 
 "Whatever do you mean, Francis?" 
 
 "Quoting a little Shakespeare," answered
 
 14 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 he, lightly. Then, taking out his watch, he 
 asked: "At what time does the doctor's show 
 come to a close?" 
 
 U O, there's an hour of it yet," answered 
 his mother. 
 
 "I think I'll stroll around to the G. A. R., 
 and see how Dr. Spencer looks on the plat- 
 form." 
 
 After the door had closed behind him, he 
 heaved a little sigh, and soliloquized: 
 
 "Yes; mother would like to keep cousin 
 Sadie's fortune in the family. As for me, I 
 do n't care for the money, but " 
 
 With the click of the gate the soliloquy 
 came to an end. 
 
 The G. A. R. Hall was crowded with a 
 "large and enthusiastic" audience in fact, 
 Francis Bartlett was obliged to stand in an 
 open doorway, with his neighbor's elbow in 
 uncomfortable proximity to his ribs. 
 
 The young lecturer stood upon a slightly 
 raised platform at the further end of the room. 
 She was tall and very slight, with a great deal 
 of blonde hair, put up in a loose knot at the 
 back of her head, and some few short locks curl- 
 ing about her temples and small, delicate ears. 
 She wore a straight, black gown, high in the 
 neck, with a narrow rim of white picot-edged
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 15 
 
 ribbon about her throat. The sleeves, which 
 reached her elbows, were met by the long, 
 wrinkled wrists of soft tan gloves. She held 
 her manuscript in her hand, but glanced away 
 from it now and then, as she uttered some 
 well-rounded sentence containing a favorite 
 sentiment. 
 
 Francis Bartlett looked at her for a little 
 time, admiring her graceful pose, and the dig- 
 nified simplicity of her costume, before he be- 
 gan to listen to what she was saying. 
 
 The first period which, to make use of 
 Nora's vernacular, he "sensed," was to this 
 effect : 
 
 "St. Paul told the Romans that God's wrath 
 'was (manifest against ungodliness and un- 
 righteousness in men, because that which may 
 be known of God is manifest in them; for God 
 manifested it unto them. For the invisible 
 things of him since the creation of the world 
 are clearly seen, being perceived through the 
 things that are made, even his everlasting 
 power and divinity ; that they may be without 
 excuse.' 
 
 "He spoke, you will perceive, of manifes- 
 tations and revelations made directly to the 
 human consciousness itself that inward il- 
 lumination concerning his will and purpose
 
 16 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 to which we of to-day, in a broader, higher, 
 and superior sense, lay claim. 
 
 " Theosophy, wisdom in the things of God, 
 may not be clearly demonstrable as a science, 
 but, like the miracles of Jesus, it is above all 
 classified knowledge, and to be believed in for 
 'the very works' sake;' both these 'works' 
 having for their aim 'the healing of the na- 
 tions.' 
 
 "It differs from revealed religion, inasmuch 
 as the former comes through inward inspira- 
 tion, by means of which the mind is given a 
 direct insight into the will and pleasure of the 
 great and otherwise unfathomable intelligence 
 which moves the universe. 
 
 "Emerson said: 'When the Master of the 
 universe has points to carry in his government, 
 he impresses his will in the structure of minds.' 
 Granting this, as we claim we may, you may 
 readily see how in past ages this illuminating 
 power struggled to pierce the darkness of igno- 
 rance, prejudice, and superstition existing in 
 the hearts and beliefs of mankind ; succeed- 
 ing, in a sufficient degree, even among those 
 who did not worship the one God, to stand as 
 a prophecy of its more complete and final vic- 
 tory in our own and future generations; 'God 
 having provided some better thing concerning
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 17 
 
 us, that, apart from us, they should not be 
 made perfect.' 
 
 "The old Greeks accepted, without ques- 
 tion, the mythological annals of close and in- 
 timate relationship between gods and worship- 
 ers. Instance the condescension of Pallas, 
 when she became the mentor of Telemachus. 
 
 "This manifestation, written on the heart; 
 this inward revelation, independent of reason, 
 and often opposed to reason, so called, was 
 then but imperfectly translated and under- 
 stood was but a shadow of the better things 
 reserved for us; and while, in itself, an indi- 
 cator of certain truth, it was so commingled 
 with the error of their vain imaginings that 
 they gave heed to auguries, and had faith in 
 Pythias and Sibyls, who delivered the ambig- 
 uous messages of the oracles. The wind in 
 the vocal oaks and the tinkle of the brazen 
 basins was, to them, the voice of a god. 
 
 "This law, faintly lettered and poorly read 
 by the Gheber, caused him to see his god in 
 the spiral whirl of the rising flame a shadow 
 of that pentecostal fire which sat in cloven 
 tongues on the disciples' heads. 
 
 "The Egyptian Platonists caught symbols 
 of its meaning when, by theurgic operations, 
 they thought to move the gods to fuller reve-
 
 l8 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 lations of their secrets, and render their glori- 
 ous presence visible to the consciousness of 
 their devotees. And out of the corruption of 
 this inestimably precious possession came the 
 magicians of the Pentateuch, Simon Magus, 
 and the later sorcerers of the East, with all 
 the jugglery and chicanery of the schools of 
 magic which their perversity founded. ( Their 
 name is legion, for they are many.' 
 
 "These historical facts, which I have 
 briefly referred to, are often quoted by the 
 adversaries of our claims against us. Tenny- 
 son once wrote : 
 
 'A lie that is all a lie, 
 
 May be met and fought with outright ; 
 But a lie that is half a truth, 
 Is always the hardest to fight.' 
 
 "Not," said the lecturer, smiling, "that a lie 
 can ever be so compounded it is only seem- 
 ing; and the truth which the Christian Sci- 
 entist has espoused, like all other truths, 
 stands impregnable against the assaults of 
 wicked persecution." 
 
 Although Francis Bartlett had been listen- 
 ing closely, he had also, like Herbert Pocket, 
 been "looking about him." 
 
 Up near the platform was a select circle, 
 or coterie, of the initiated and believing ; also
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 19 
 
 j 
 those who were but learners of the new 
 
 doctrine. 
 
 He saw long-haired men nod approvingly, 
 and both serious-faced and flippant-looking 
 women take out their note-books and gold 
 pencils, with heads of jasper or malachite, to 
 jot down notes from time to time. 
 
 "A rattling good talker, isn't she?" asked 
 a dude at his elbow, as he fixed his eye-glass 
 at a more convenient angle for a steady stare. 
 
 Francis Bartlett turned wrathfully in his 
 direction, to discover that the question had 
 not been addressed to him. 
 
 Disgusted with himself, the circumstances 
 yes, and with Sadie he began to shoulder 
 his way through the press of people behind 
 him, in order to leave the place ; but, as he 
 did so, he heard distinctly the reply of the 
 dude's companion : 
 
 " You bet ; and she 's got the tin."
 
 II. 
 
 he reached the street he felt very 
 hot and disagreeable. He took a large 
 handkerchief from the inside pocket of 
 his coat, and hurriedly wiped his face 
 and forehead, removing the soft traveling hat 
 he had been wearing, as he did so, and baring 
 his head to the cool night air. 
 
 The heavens were deeply blue and full of 
 stars. Orion seemed to be more aggressively 
 visible than usual. 
 
 "What a crowd a little town like this can 
 turn out to hear a pretty woman lecture!" 
 thought he. 
 
 "You bet; and she 's got the tin," seemed 
 to come mockingly to his ears. 
 
 "I wish she hadn't," muttered he. "If 
 she had been poor enough to be compelled to 
 do something real and true I If she only had 
 had to struggle a little to live ; not too much 
 that chills and crushes hope, and discourages 
 and breaks the heart women were never 
 meant for it. Man's curse was to labor, and 
 earn his bread in the sweat of his brow; but 
 woman's place is 'the sweet, safe corner by 
 20
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 21 
 
 the household fire, behind the heads of chil- 
 dren.' Only enough just enough work to 
 bring out what is finest, best, and truest 
 in her!" 
 
 He did not say all this in approved melo- 
 dramatic style. He only thought the greater 
 part of it as he went slowly along past the 
 dusky, fragrant front yards, sweet with sum- 
 mer flowers. And he further thought that 
 Sadie, by right, might expect to marry a man 
 with a fortune equal to her own. A sigh fol- 
 lowed this thought. "Although," the inward 
 voice went on, "a right sort of fellow would n't 
 want a wife imbued with that kind of philoso- 
 phy. I think I will try to convert her from 
 it before he comes. I said she did n't know 
 any more about those things than a kitten ! 
 A man can 't tell what a cultivated woman 
 knows. Her insight is so keen she learns 
 from everything. While man masters an al- 
 phabet, she appropriates the sciences to which 
 it is the key. But Christian Science ! That 's 
 a misnomer. She 's subtle, though ; good at 
 reasoning ; a fine logician. Better than I was 
 when I made my maiden plea or am now, 
 for that matter, perhaps ! Was it an eye 
 Browning called 'blue as Astarte's?' Yes, 
 her eye is blue enough, and so am I !"
 
 22 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 Next morning, Francis Bartlett came down 
 to breakfast at what he considered an early 
 hour. In times past such an hour had dis- 
 covered his Cousin Sadie in bed, fast asleep ; 
 and it had been considerably later in the fore- 
 noon before she appeared in the dining-room, 
 in her picturesque morning dress of flowered 
 China silk, or a loose red merino, with its 
 graceful little train and negligb effect, which 
 she called a tea-gown. 
 
 On this occasion she was there before him, 
 in a severely plain costume of very dark blue, 
 buttoned to the throat like an officer's uni- 
 form, and showing her slight but not angular 
 figure to advantage. 
 
 She came forward, and gave him her hand 
 with an effusiveness of welcome a little over- 
 done a precipitancy, which seemed to say : 
 "If 'twere done, when 'tis done, 'twere well 
 it were done quickly." 
 
 It appeared to Mrs. Bartlett, looking on 
 from the head of the table, as if Sadie might 
 have dreaded this first greeting, and desired 
 to have it over as soon as possible. Truly, 
 many things had happened since these young 
 people had last met. 
 
 "Why, Francis, how well you look! Why 
 didn't you let us know you were coming?"
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 23 
 
 "I ought to have done so; by failing to do 
 it, I missed a part of my welcome home." 
 
 A little color came into her face; it was 
 not a blush, but just such a tinge of red as is 
 often called up by the inward tenacity and 
 force of purpose with which one's will rallies 
 to the support of a stimulating resolution sup- 
 posed to be menaced from without. 
 
 "I had an engagement. I am often en- 
 gaged, now, in the evenings. Sit down; the 
 coffee will be cold. Perhaps Aunt Harriet 
 may have told you that I " the blonde head 
 raised itself a trifle defiantly on the firm, 
 white neck supporting it "am delivering a 
 course of lectures." 
 
 "Ye es," drawled he, a little absently, sit- 
 ting down at his mother's right hand. " Two 
 lumps, mother! I 've taken on the habit of 
 using one more since I went away. Did n't 
 always get milk in camp. And are you well 
 Sarah?" 
 
 The color now on Miss Spencer's face was 
 like that with which the costumer in the play 
 makes up the heroine's complexion ; there was 
 considerable of it, and it was well diffused. 
 
 It was the first time in his life he had 
 ever called her by that title, and the sound of 
 it was not so pleasing as it had seemed to her
 
 24 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 from other friends and acquaintances. Still, 
 Sadie was a very childish prsenomen for a 
 serious young woman to be known by, and she 
 said to herself it was very well that Francis 
 had taken the initiative, without her having 
 had to instruct him. 
 
 "Never better," said she, a little con- 
 strainedly. 
 
 "You look odd, somehow; what's the mat- 
 ter? O, to be sure! You have on a street 
 dress. What have you done with that pink 
 affair, with the front all a riot of roses La 
 France, and Jacques, and Perle de what is it?" 
 
 She laughed: "How observing and ac- 
 curate individuals of your sex always are in 
 describing women's gowns! I'm in street 
 dress because I go out mornings to to treat 
 my patients." 
 
 Mr. Bartlett coughed, and became ominously 
 silent. His brows contracted, and the two 
 vertical lines between them came into promi- 
 nence. The lawyer on the other side of the 
 case always knew that ' Bartlett was warming 
 to his work ' when he saw that sign appear. 
 
 "I should have thought," began he, and 
 she straightened her spine for the expected 
 onslaught, when suddenly the tinkle of a bell 
 was heard from somewhere in the upper re-
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 25 
 
 gions of the house. Miss Spencer jumped up, 
 and threw down her napkin. " Excuse me, 
 please," said she, and walked out of the room. 
 Frank got upon his feet, also, and looked in- 
 quiringly at his mother. 
 
 "It's her telephone-bell," explained she. 
 "She has put telephones, at her own expense, 
 into more than half a dozen houses of people 
 she professes to 'treat.' Listen!" 
 
 The doors and windows were open through- 
 out the house, and presently, like a hail to a 
 ship in the offing, he heard the high, strained 
 call, as of a voice on stilts, shoot its unsteady 
 silvery salute into the transmitter "Hello!" 
 
 "She would better lower her voice a little; 
 they 'd hear her more distinctly. People have 
 an idea that telephones are deaf. Well, ma 
 mere, how long has this tomfoolery been go- 
 ing on?" 
 
 "A couple of months, or such a matter. I 
 knew you wouldn't like it; but she laid the 
 whole matter before me in the start, and told 
 me she would abide by my decision. Could 
 she have the liberty of the house in carrying 
 on this work, or would it annoy me ? She 
 said she could get Mr. Patchett's cottage, and 
 Miss Jane York for a chaperon, if I thought it 
 would be disagreeable to have her and her tel- 
 
 3
 
 26 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 ephone, and at times, perhaps, her patients 
 here. So, what could I do? I knew it would 
 not look well to have her leave us in that 
 fashion. Her friends would have called it re- 
 ligious persecution on our part, and those who 
 don't believe in it would have said she was a 
 crank; and she would have been spied upon 
 and slandered, perhaps. I knew, too, she was 
 under your guardianship " 
 
 "Yes, yes; I understand and many other 
 reasons. As to the guardianship, you know it 
 does n't extend to anything but her property 
 since she came of age. Her father was wise, 
 though, to give her only the income until she 
 is twenty-five. She seems to be dispensing 
 that with a liberal hand, however, as regards 
 telephones. But you were right, quite right, 
 in not letting her go to Patchett's. Is that 
 nephew of his here this summer?" 
 
 u Mr. Langdon? Well rather. He brought 
 the doctor home last evening. Didn't you 
 hear them talking over the gate?" 
 
 Francis Bartlett turned toward the win- 
 dow, thoughtfully pulling his heavy, tawny 
 mustache, and neglected to answer his mother's 
 question. As she looked after him, a sly, 
 swift, satisfied smile passed across her lips, 
 and she shrugged her shoulders complacently.
 
 HI. 
 
 . BARTLETT went down to his office, 
 and "buckled down," as he called it, 
 to the examination of piles of briefs, con- 
 tracts, and a mklange of other papers 
 which had accumulated during his absence. 
 He held an extended stance with his junior 
 partner, and made a mighty feint of rushing 
 once more into the full-flowing tide of his erst- 
 while interrupted business affairs. 
 
 But, somehow or other, he felt like Saul 
 when the witch of Bndor had brought up 
 Samuel the spirit had gone out of him. 
 
 His home-coming had been robbed of the 
 pleasure which he had anticipated while away. 
 He saw no prospect, now, that matters were at 
 all likely to drift back into the old trend. 
 There appeared no promise of renewing the 
 former pastimes, which, in winter, were the 
 lecture, concert, or the new book to be read 
 and discussed in company with Sadie, under 
 the shaded light of the "sitting-room lamp ; or, 
 now and then, an entire evening at the piano, 
 trying new selections, or growing dreamy and 
 happy over the recital of old ones. In sum- 
 
 27
 
 28 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 mer there was boating, an occasional horse- 
 back ride, or evenings when Sadie swung lazily 
 in the hammock under the trees, and he, sit- 
 ting near, watched the stars and the fire-flies 
 and the slender figure, looking half like a 
 ghost, as its white draperies shone out of the 
 dusky gloom. 
 
 At such times he had been reconciled even 
 to the chaperonage of his mother, as she sat 
 at a discreet distance in a rocking-chair, which 
 creaked as it rocked, wearing a three-cornered 
 white affair over her head that looked like a 
 tidy, and holding a Japanese fan, with which 
 she busied herself in fighting off the mosqui- 
 toes. Somehow he had been so foolishly happy 
 in listening to Sadie's piquant prattle, with its 
 undertone of wistful gravity. He had thought 
 her deference to his larger wisdom so appeal- 
 ing. Her follies had been so harmless and 
 pretty they had almost taken the guise of vir- 
 tues; and she had been so full of sparkling 
 fancies that she was like a brilliant with many 
 faces, all of which take the light and throw it 
 back in a dazzle of radiance. He would have 
 proposed marriage to Sadie long ere this, if it 
 had not been for her money. 
 
 Francis Bartlett had an assertive sentiment 
 that the man was the head of the woman, and
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 29 
 
 that for a wife to possess so patent an ad- 
 vantage over her husband as to be the moneyed 
 partner in the matrimonial alliance, was some- 
 thing not at all to be desired. 
 
 He did not feel certain that Sadie would 
 have accepted him under any circumstances, 
 however; but, up to the time of his going 
 away, the present had been quite pleasant 
 enough, without attempting to forecast the fu- 
 ture too accurately. 
 
 He had not invited Sadie to correspond 
 with him for the reason that he feared to 
 commit himself, in so intimate a correspond- 
 ence as that might have become, to something 
 which his judgment would afterward con- 
 demn. So, regretfully, he had held in abey- 
 ance this friendship, with its tendency on his 
 part to ripen into something warmer, during 
 the six months of his absence. 
 
 He had thought to return and find all 
 things as they had been hitherto ; to surren- 
 der himself, in spite of the dissenting voice of 
 prudence, to the fascinating delights of 
 home, he called it. But, in spite of the fact 
 that this young man thought his mother 
 something quite unique in the maternal line, 
 "home" meant to his appreciative percep- 
 tions, two-thirds Sadie and one "ma mere."
 
 30 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 All things else were "as they had been;" 
 but an unexpected and overwhelming cata- 
 clysm seemed to have swept Sadie suddenly 
 and completely away from him. 
 
 He had at first been astonished, then 
 amused, then indignant, at the turn affairs 
 had taken. 
 
 All these varying states and conditions of 
 feeling had alternately been uppermost before 
 he stood in the doorway of the G. A. R. Hall, 
 and listened to an infinitesimal portion of 
 Sadie's lecture. The prevailing state of mind 
 which followed upon this, was that of pro- 
 found perplexity. 
 
 It would not greatly have surprised him if, 
 under certain circumstances, with environ- 
 ments to foster it, this bright, sparkling crea- 
 ture had developed into a butterfly ; but a 
 religieuse, and an austere and mystical one 
 at that ! 
 
 Nothing suits men better than to have the 
 women they admire filled with tender Chris- 
 tian aspirations, which serve to round and 
 complete and crown, with idealistic touch, 
 their otherwise already beautiful human char- 
 acters. 
 
 Men of no decided religious views of their 
 own, and men with decidedly antagonistic
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 3! 
 
 views, for the regulation of their own lives 
 and conduct, are well agreed that it behooves 
 women to be good. And if such women be- 
 long to them by ties of blood, or the closer 
 ties of the heart, they are often inclined, even 
 in the midst of ridicule or satire upon Chris- 
 tians in general, to plume themselves upon 
 the superior Christianity of these in partic- 
 ular. As^if, somehow, it formed an segis of 
 protection for them likewise ; and, like all the 
 other virtues of their women-kind, was super- 
 erogatory in its nature the excess, over and 
 above, being imputed to them ! 
 
 To have found that Sadie had "embraced 
 religion" in the normal way, become a mem- 
 ber of the Church they had both been brought 
 up to attend, and of which he himself was a 
 well-paying, if not a highly or deeply spiritual 
 member, would have suited his conceptions 
 of what was right, desirable, and proper. 
 But this phantasm, this will-o'-the-wisp, this 
 er "fly-up-the-creek" (a peculiar bird, so 
 known in the homely nomenclature of the 
 country, coming into his mind), was altogether 
 a different matter. 
 
 Sadie taking herself seriously was, in it- 
 self, a surprise. But the surprise widened 
 and deepened as it became, from day to day,
 
 32 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 more fully impressed upon him that she was 
 taking her self-imposed mission to minister to 
 a sick and suffering clientelage, very seriously 
 as well. 
 
 How a girl of twenty-three, who had had 
 but the ordinary school-training in physiology 
 and hygiene, and promptly forgotten the 
 major part of it without doubt, could have 
 the assurance to attempt to cure people of 
 fevers, consumption, cancers, and the like, was 
 something beyond his comprehension. 
 
 He propounded this question to his mother 
 how could such a thing be? 
 
 Mrs. Bartlett laughed at him gaily, and 
 shook her head. 
 
 "When you speak of her aptitude as a 
 healer in connection with a knowledge of 
 physiology, and anything else so gross and 
 unreal as a human body, you display your ig- 
 norance most lamentably. She gets a spiritual 
 or mental ' illumination ' as tp what is the mat- 
 ter with the seeming body of the patient, and 
 another as to the remedial means to be applied 
 in the case. 
 
 "Hygienic precautions are considered cul- 
 pable follies, if not actual sins, because they 
 concede the existence of evil, through the en- 
 deavor to avoid it. Sanitary advocates are an
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 33 
 
 aggravated type of evil-doers. You have only to 
 imagine the air off the muck or garbage heap 
 festering in the sun, or a volume of sewer-gas, 
 pure and salubrious, and it will brace the res- 
 piratory organs like the balmy breath of bal- 
 samic odors. Jenner's discovery is to Sadie 
 and her school an enemy to human progress; 
 Pasteur's career is disgusting and horrible to 
 contemplate; and they turn from Koch's lymph 
 of tuberculous germs in a holy horror too deep 
 for words. They believe in and admit the 
 origin and progress of no disease independent 
 of mental belief, and discard every remedy 
 which lies outside of it." 
 
 " But what of those insidious diseases that 
 begin and make progress long before the de- 
 tective nerves of sensation have made their 
 tardy report? The slow-growing tumors and 
 cancers, or the sudden amaurosis or other 
 paralysis, instantaneously developing from an- 
 tecedent causes not before apprehended?" 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. "Somebody 
 else's mind somebody else's! When Cain, in 
 his rustic cradle, had the world's first case of 
 colic, it must clearly have been attributable to 
 Adam and Eve. They had never heard or 
 known of colic, it is true ; but is it not highly 
 probable that their minds may have conjee-
 
 34 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 tured a possible state of potential, obvious evil, 
 resulting in the seeming disturbance of appar- 
 ent gastric conditions?" 
 
 "O, exceedingly!" said he, laughing. "But, 
 jesting aside, this seems horrible to me. I 
 can't understand how a true, good, honest girl, 
 such as Sadie always was, can lend herself to 
 such a mockery and mummery as this evi- 
 dently is such an unblushing cheat!" 
 
 "Be quiet, dear. Don't say such hard 
 things. Sadie is true and honest still. She 
 is a dupe, herself. She has listened to a siren's 
 song. This, which is neither a religion nor 
 yet a science, but professing to be both, comes 
 in the name of Christ (to which, of course, it 
 has no right, I know), promising to do away 
 with all the evils flesh is heir to even death, 
 itself; and it has appealed to her highly imag- 
 inative mind with a great deal of force. She 
 means well. She thinks she is doing good, 
 and she has a sort of aesthetic enjoyment in 
 this abandonment of realism, that she takes to 
 be spirituality. Frank, I wish you would go 
 about combating this fad if it may be called 
 that, being so much more dangerous in the 
 right way. Study it, and show her its fallacies, 
 beginning, of course, with the proof that it 
 isn't Christian, at all. She leaves her books
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 35 
 
 around all over the house read them. It's a 
 pity, I think, if Francis Bartlett, ^-squire, as 
 Nora's young man insists on calling you, can 
 not down her aiguments," 
 
 "Look here, mother," called he cautiously; 
 "that looks as if the attraction might be 
 mutual/" (directing her attention to the win- 
 dow.) 
 
 Mrs. Bartlett did look, and a frown came 
 over her pleasant, placid forehead. 
 
 Mr. Langdon and Miss Spencer were com- 
 ing along the plank sidewalk, upon which the 
 front yard looked, together. She was in her 
 dark-blue gown, and wore a flaring, wide- 
 brimmed hat of coarse blue straw, trimmed 
 with bunches of ribbon, darker still. 
 
 She held in one hand a large sun-umbrella, 
 and in the other a deep-red rose, which her 
 companion had evidently just given her, for 
 she was pressing it to her dainty nose, and 
 exclaiming rapturously: "How sweet! How 
 delicious! I am so fond of roses!" 
 
 Mr, Langdon felt tempted to say to her: 
 
 "Why are you fond of them? They have 
 no color, no form, no perfume. They are 
 simply an idea that you and I and the world 
 in general have in common. They do not 
 exist, you know, per se" But he did not say
 
 36 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 it, for two reasons! One was that he loved 
 her the other, that he desired to make her 
 love him; and something seemed to tell him 
 that that way danger lay. 
 
 So, being wise as a serpent in that regard, 
 he strove, also, to be harmless as a dove. He 
 said: "Delicious, indeed!" and looked at her. 
 And, greatly to her disgust and fiery indigna- 
 tion with herself, she began to blush, and 
 turned her head away. 
 
 They came up to the gate, both of them 
 looking conscious and feeling certain that 
 Francis Bartlett, sitting so composedly by 
 the window, reading his World, had seen and 
 put his own interpretation upon this little 
 contretemps. 
 
 She leaned upon the gate for a few mo- 
 ments, and talked. It was because she dreaded 
 to go in; but neither the man on the sidewalk 
 nor the one behind the paper knew this. The 
 latter, thus shielded, looked at his rival from 
 a coign of vantage. 
 
 He saw a lithe, elegant figure, courtly and 
 graceful ; a handsome Southern face, with clear, 
 olive complexion and dark eyes; a proud, sen- 
 sitive mouth, with a drooping mustache such 
 as has gifted more than one hero of romance, 
 and many a rascally scamp in real life, with
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 37 
 
 the melancholy charm so difficult for impres- 
 sionable youth and beauty to resist. 
 
 "He has n't a great deal of body," growled 
 Francis Bartlett, from behind the paper. 
 
 "Body!" said Mrs. Bartlett, spiritedly; 
 "that's exactly what he doesn't need, you 
 know, to make his way with Sarah Katherine. 
 She may conclude to marry him, as Dorothy, 
 in 'Middlemarch,' did Mr. Casaubon, for 'his 
 beautiful soul.' ' 
 
 Francis gave his mother an annihilating 
 look, and strode out of the room.
 
 WEEK passed away, very much after 
 
 this same fashion. Francis Bartlett and 
 
 a, Sarah Spencer dwelt under the same 
 
 ' roof, but the old days of companionship 
 
 and confidence seemed forever to be over. 
 
 When he came in, she was always out, or 
 reading books on this new theology in her 
 room, or responding, " Hello ! hello !" over 
 her telephone, to the calls of those whom she 
 spoke of grandiloquently as her "people." 
 
 Once, during that time, Judge Blimber, a 
 wealthy widower of about a year's standing, 
 and not at all bad to look at, had driven up 
 with his elegant carriage and span, for Miss 
 Spencer to fulfill an engagement to drive 
 with him. 
 
 Francis was sitting in the parlor at the 
 time just after an early tea but the judge 
 could not leave his restive team, and did not 
 go in, waiting outside for the lady hastily 
 donning her hat and gloves tip-stairs. 
 
 Francis measured the judge with a new 
 rule this time. He had known him as a suc- 
 cessful lawyer, afterward awarded judicial 
 38
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 39 
 
 honors ; but had never considered him as a 
 lady's man. He had thought of him as an 
 "old duffer;" but in point of fact the judge 
 was not above forty, with a pleasing manner, 
 and a practical capacity for piling up money. 
 
 The hand which he gracefully extended to 
 assist Miss Spencer to a seat, when she made 
 her appearance, was most exquisitely gloved. 
 He wore a high silk hat, with a weed the 
 depth of its crown. 
 
 As they drove away, the young man thought 
 to himself that the late Mrs. Blimber would 
 hardly have been satisfied with that "weed," 
 if she could have seen the air and smile with 
 which her aforetime husband laid an exquisite 
 bunch of roses upon his companion's lap. 
 
 In truth, Francis was not satisfied with it 
 himself, but became a little more reconciled 
 as he glanced toward the other side of the 
 street, and saw passing by his late b&te noire 
 from the sunny South, who looked quite as 
 disconsolate as he felt. 
 
 "Sadie's admirers all seem to have tum- 
 bled to the preference for roses," thought he ; 
 and then, a little ashamed of the coarse form 
 his thought had taken, he covered it up with 
 a line of Tennyson's : 
 
 " And the soul of the rose went into my blood."
 
 40 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 Just then, Nora, with the privileged air of 
 semi-rural servants, put her head in at the 
 door, saying: 
 
 " The likes of men ! They easy forget 
 them that 's gone. But I do n't know as bet- 
 ter could be expected, when you consider that 
 every girl in this town is greasin' her shoes 
 to run after him, and poor Mis's Blimber's 
 only been in her grave a year come this fourth 
 of July. I was saying that same to Mr. 
 Dempsey yesterday, and what do you think 
 he said?" 
 
 "That he wouldn't be that kind of a 
 widower when his Nora mavourneen 'under 
 the willows was sleeping !' " 
 
 "O, Mr. Francis! I didn't think you'd 
 make fun of a poor girl! He said he 'reck- 
 oned the judge thought she 's as dead as she 
 ever would be.' ' 
 
 And then Nora looked sharply at the law- 
 yer, to take note of his appreciation of her 
 young man's 'cuteness. 
 
 He threw back his head, and laughed out- 
 right a genuine, merry, heart-whole laugh. 
 
 "And he had the right of it," said he, his 
 merriment subsiding. "But is Miss Spencer 
 one of those who has been 'greasin' her 
 shoes?' "
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 41 
 
 "Not she! The women that come here 
 seem to think she 's a complete saint ; but, I 
 tell you, she looked as human as what they 
 are when she put on her hat to-night, saying 
 that she ' could n't get out of it this time ; but 
 there was one sure thing about it, that this 
 would be the last time.' " 
 
 At this, Mr. Bartlett's spirits rose like 
 mercury in a thermometer on a hot sum- 
 mer day. 
 
 He forgot all about George Langdon, and 
 he might have gone so far as to kiss Nora for 
 the disposal of one rival at least, had it not 
 been that he possessed too chivalrous a spirit 
 to take undue liberties with a girl because 
 her social position was inferior to his own. 
 
 But, although Judge Blimber's promised 
 conge kept Mr. Bartlett tolerably comfortable 
 over night, the sober second thought of the 
 ensuing day made it very clear to his con- 
 sciousness that, no matter how many of those 
 who pretended to the hand of his second 
 cousin might meet with short shrift from it, 
 it did not in any wise alter his own relation 
 toward her. 
 
 And yet what had he to complain of? He 
 had never made it evident to Sadie that he 
 cared for her as a lover. He, it appeared, had 
 
 4
 
 42 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 desired to play the r61e of "cousin," and be a 
 dog in the manger. Somehow, even now, the 
 knowledge of her bonds and stocks, first mort- 
 gages, etc., was just as difficult to get over, 
 and as subversive to the idea of their estab- 
 lishing a conjugal firm as ever; although, if 
 Sadie had a fellow-feeling to that which he 
 experienced for her, and he was very sure of 
 it, why everybody has to sacrifice some opin- 
 ions to the behests of the heart ! 
 
 When he had arrived at this sapient con- 
 clusion, he threw down his pen and banged 
 the covers of his open book in so vindictive a 
 manner that the clerk reading "Campbell on 
 Equity " looked up in surprise and conster- 
 nation. 
 
 "I'm going out for the day," said he. "If 
 Croft calls for that paper, it 's in this lower 
 pigeon-hole in the right-hand corner ; and you 
 may tell Mrs. Weeks, if she happens in, that 
 I'm giving that matter of hers due attention." 
 
 Then he slammed the door, only to open it 
 again immediately to remark that "nobody 
 need come to the house after him, as he was 
 going out of town." 
 
 He met Judge Blimber just outside the 
 court-house, and was pleased to observe that 
 he was not smiling, and, if anything, looked a
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 43 
 
 little sour. He went home and hunted up his 
 rod and fishing-line, a box of hooks, and some 
 gorgeous red and yellow flies. 
 
 Nobody was there but Nora, who respect- 
 fully tried to persuade him to delay his de- 
 parture until after dinner, as there was to be 
 a strawberry short-cake. She did not succeed ; 
 but they compromised the matter by her wrap- 
 ping up some beef sandwiches and pickles and 
 a hard-boiled egg in one of his mother's finest 
 napkins, bordered with drawn-work. 
 
 "And if you want me to keep on staying 
 here, Mr. Francis, do you be sure to bring 
 back that napkin," said she. 
 
 "Which same I do; and it shall come back 
 again." 
 
 Then he shouldered his tackle and was off, 
 with the sandwiches in his pocket. 
 
 When he arrived at the objective point of 
 his pedestrian tour, he found that he was con- 
 siderably heated, and, throwing off his hat, lay 
 down in the shade on the bank of the stream 
 to cool off. 
 
 "What a fool I am!" quoth he, "rushing 
 off and leaving my business in this way!" 
 
 There was nobody to dispute this proposi- 
 sion, so he let it stand. 
 
 Then when he had cooled off, it was so
 
 44 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 quiet and deliciously secluded, and a yellow- 
 vested bumble-bee was droning in so restful a 
 monotone among the fennel-weeds that grew 
 thickly around him, he concluded that "forty 
 winks" would do him as much good as it did 
 the Fat Boy in " Pickwick," and resigned him- 
 self to a qiiiet little nap all of which was 
 the very reverse of romantic, or the sequel to 
 be expected of an impetuous man whose wor- 
 ries of mind over a fair maiden had made him 
 temporarily incompetent for the consideration 
 of complicated legal affairs. 
 
 Perhaps he realized this when he awoke. 
 At least, he shrugged his shoulders, with the 
 remark that "human nature was queer mate- 
 rial," and proceeded to discuss Nora's lunch, 
 after which he pocketed the napkin, to make 
 sure it wouldn't get away. 
 
 Then he sat up, tilted his hat over his eyes, 
 and turned his attention to the finny popula- 
 tion in the waters before him. The stream 
 was a beautiful, meandering ribbon of silver, 
 with a musical-sounding Indian name ; but 
 the people who lived in the town and adjacent 
 country spoke of it only as " the crick."
 
 ik. 
 
 HERE is a natural vein of cruelty in man. 
 
 Scratch the civilized gentleman and you 
 
 find the barbarian. 
 
 Francis Bartlett became wonderfully 
 absorbed in his occupation. He forgot, for the 
 nonce, all about Sadie and Langdon, and the 
 vexing questions of which they were the 
 subjects. 
 
 Casting his line, he sat looking down into 
 the pellucid water, so clear that its gravelly 
 bed, strewn with pebbles, seemed clarified and 
 magnified, as something looked at through a 
 microscopic lens. How smoothly the silver- 
 skinned denizens of this liquid under-world 
 slipped through its vital element ! It re- 
 minded him of Andersen's fairy-tale about the 
 "Little Mermaid," which was one of the favor- 
 ite stories of the hobbledehoy period of his 
 life a time when most boys have outgrown 
 the magic charms of elf-lore, and are wild for 
 adventures and the sea. But he had admired 
 it for its poetry and imagery; it touched his 
 sympathy with its strain of yearning and les- 
 son of heroic, unappreciated sacrifice. 
 
 45
 
 46 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 Did they feel and think these creatures 
 as the little mermaid did? And suffer? 
 Then there was a jerk, and the line tightened. 
 A struggle in the water, a glint of sunlight on 
 the silver scales, and the poetry and imagery 
 and sympathy with the under-world life was 
 instantaneously dispelled. 
 
 He was conscious, just then, of nothing be- 
 yond the proud fact of having landed his prey. 
 And he straightway secured it, and left it to 
 die, regardless of the question of its sufferings. 
 
 Again and again came the jerk and the 
 taut line, and the string of his trophies was 
 lengthening apace, when,' casually looking up 
 the stream, he beheld a pleasing sight. 
 
 It was not a royal barge, like that in which 
 Antony first beheld Cleopatra, with purple 
 sails and u poop of beaten gold." It was only 
 a boat, a little -boat that the old man below 
 the bridge often rented to pleasure-seekers go- 
 ing upon the water. It was too far off for him 
 to road its name, but he knew its shape and 
 color, and just where "The Pansy" was painted 
 on its strakes in golden letters. 
 
 In the exact center of the boat, in the 
 middle of the thwart which crossed it, was a sol- 
 itary oarswoman. No dawdling voluptuary, 
 but a lithe, light, erect figure, full of vigorous
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 47 
 
 strength, sending the row-boat forward with 
 the strokes of her own oars. 
 
 He was certain it was Sadie, by her general 
 air and carriage, and the pose of her head as 
 it leaned forward, while she stretched the oar 
 to the limit of the stopper. He, himself, had 
 taught her the technicalities of rowing, and 
 prided himself on the proficiency of his pupil. 
 Then, as she came nearer, he caught a dazzling 
 impression of color from her white blouse, blue 
 skirt, and the vivid red silk handkerchief 
 knotted about her throat, to protect the back 
 of her neck from sunburn. 
 
 She wore a white sailor-hat, banded about 
 by a white ribbon, and set well back upon her 
 head, giving her a piquant and jaunty air, 
 and intensifying the youthfulness of her ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 Miss Spencer, upon her part, had caught 
 sight of Mr. Bartlett over her shoulder, only a 
 short time after he had detected her approach, 
 and gave a start as she lecognized him. 
 
 How well she knew his form and air and 
 style! That was the easy-fitting, careless sack 
 coat he sometimes wore about the house and 
 on his rural tramps, when the vagabondish 
 spirit, of which some men possess more than 
 others, and of which he had a goodly share,
 
 48 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 came uppermost. The very way in which his 
 handkerchief was thrust into its outside upper 
 pocket, was instinct with his individuality. 
 
 What broad, square, masculine shoulders, 
 that transformed the old flannel coat, as it 
 hung over them, into a thing of beauty! His 
 straw hat was tip-tilted over his eyes. 
 
 "Poor fellow!" aspirated she. "He ap- 
 pears dejected!" Then, bethinking herself, 
 she added: "I am glad of it; he ought to be." 
 " How shall I pass him ?" reflected she. " He is 
 a lion in the way. Shall I go on, with a stiff 
 bow, or halt and make some careless remark, 
 just to show I do n't care for the way he has 
 acted? Or, shall I look straight into space, 
 and pretend not to see him at all?" 
 
 And when she had about concluded to pursue 
 the latter course, he put both hands to his mouth, 
 like a speaking-trumpet, and called out: 
 
 "Hello! Hello!" 
 
 This she took to be a reflection upon her 
 telephone, and looked in another direction. 
 
 "Ahoy! Ahoy! Friend, ahoy!" 
 
 "What impudence! He would wake the 
 'seven sleepers!' I shall have to look." But 
 her rigid neck had not yet turned in his di- 
 rection when he cried out: 
 
 "Sadie! Sadie! Come alongside."
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 49 
 
 "O, is it you, Francis?" 
 
 "Please come alongside. I want to speak 
 to you?" 
 
 "Anything important?" 
 
 "Very important, to me." 
 
 "If some other time will do as well, I am 
 going two or three miles further down the 
 stream." 
 
 She turned the bow in his direction, and in 
 a moment or two more the boat sat rocking 
 on the water in front of him. 
 
 "Where are you going, Sadie?" 
 
 She hesitated a moment, then, with a little 
 constraint in her air, replied: 
 
 "I am taking some things to a family down 
 near the Aldershot farm. They are down on 
 their luck, and this is a relief expedition." 
 
 "Pick me up, and let me go along. Fancy 
 me a castaway, and relieve me from existence 
 on a desert island." 
 
 She hesitated. She felt, instinctively, that 
 Francis Bartlett, to use a homely phrase, had 
 a "rod in pickle" for her; and ever since his 
 return she had avoided being alone with him, 
 lest, like the sword of Damocles, it should de- 
 scend upon her. But there seemed, now, no 
 escape for her, without the display of down- 
 right incivility.
 
 50 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 "I will contribute," suggested he, insin- 
 uatingly, holding up his string of fish. 
 
 "But I don't believe you know them," 
 she began. 
 
 "Well, if I don't, I am very easy to get 
 acquainted with. There is a great deal of 
 what do you call it ? affinite de g&nie in my 
 make up. Who are they?" 
 
 "Their name is Eppert" 
 
 "Eppert? Joe Eppert? That's rather 
 rich, my not knowing Joe Eppert ! I suspect 
 he 'd have gone to the work-house, or over 
 the road, and been working out a sentence, 
 before this, if I hadn't known him. I 've got- 
 ten him out of some tough scrapes." 
 
 "Is he bad?" asked she, in a troubled way. 
 "I thought he was only poor, and and 
 sick." 
 
 "Sick, is he?" 
 
 "Why it well, yes that is " 
 
 "Well, if Joe's sick, why, of course, I 
 must go and see him. Hold her to the shore, 
 Sadie ; I do n't like wet feet. We '11 pick up 
 the bamboo as we come back." 
 
 With this, he threw down his rod, and 
 stepped carefully into the boat. 
 
 "Change seats!" said he, in a masterful 
 way, such as women gloat over in manly men,
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 51 
 
 yet, nevertheless, always feel bound to resent. 
 He saw the dawning resistance in her face. 
 
 "I can pull a better oar than you. I stud- 
 ied Greek at college, you know ; and I do n't 
 catch so many crabs." 
 
 "Crabs, indeed!" said she, scornfully, but 
 obeying, and surrendering her place. Then 
 a sharp inflection came into her voice, as he 
 pulled away: "Look where you are going, 
 College Greek !" 
 
 He pulled to one side, just in time to avoid 
 grazing the shore of a little island to their 
 right. 
 
 Then, finding himself in so unexpectedly 
 pleasant a situation, out in a boat on a sum- 
 mer stream with Sadie, with Langdon and the 
 Judge left safely behind, he felt so jubilant 
 that he burst into a stave of an old Scotch 
 boating song, written by Sir Walter himself, 
 beginning : 
 
 "Row, vassals, row, for the pride of the Highlands! 
 Stretch to your oars, for the ever-green pine!" 
 
 The air was an improvisation, composed of 
 a conglomeration of selections from sundry 
 and various melodies with which he was fa- 
 miliar ; but his voice was good, and the strain 
 was not without music ; especially where, 
 at the end, it vaulted into a high, clear
 
 52 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 tenor on the call: u Ho! iero !" When 
 he repeated it a second time, Sadie had caught 
 the refrain, and struck in with a well-modu- 
 lated contralto ; and their blended voices sent 
 the " Ho ! iero !" in a strong, sweet chorus, 
 echoing far over the quiet waters. 
 
 "This is what the French would call jolt. 
 This seems like the old times and the sum- 
 mers gone by. I do n't like the changes that 
 have come about in our camaraderie" 
 
 Miss Spencer dropped her eyes, and was 
 discreetly silent. Her eyes were, indeed, " blue 
 as Astarte's ;" not violet, but blue, with just 
 that subtle greenish hint that is often ob- 
 served in the blue eyes of people who think. 
 
 There had been a time when she had 
 thought more about Francis Bartlett than had 
 been good for her peace of mind ; but she had 
 taken herself well in hand, and resolved to 
 profit by Shakspeare's advice, and "keep in 
 the rear of her affections." 
 
 She certainly thought he could have but 
 little to complain of, if what he never wished 
 or asked for should be diverted in another 
 direction. 
 
 When, however, he reiterated, "I don't 
 like it," she looked up quietly, and said : 
 
 "Some one has aptly written : 'No summer
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 53 
 
 ever came back ; and no two summers were 
 ever alike. Times change, and people change ; 
 and if our hearts do not change as readily, so 
 much the worse for us.' " 
 
 "H'm! I never was one of those whose 
 friendships ( cast off their bright skins yearly, 
 like the snake.' I like to see you in those 
 pretty colors. They are so much more effect- 
 ive than that ugly blue, that makes you look 
 like a grenadier." 
 
 "I thought you were above such frivolities. 
 Earnest women can not spend their lives in 
 the passive display of shades and tints. Life 
 is a serious business, and subdued colors best 
 suit its moil and turmoil." 
 
 "I don't consider beauty frivolous. And 
 as to that, if blue is more religious and seri- 
 ous than red, the sunbeam and the rainbow 
 should be disintegrated, and their red and 
 yellow taken out. I like earnestness, when 
 it proceeds from life's lessons, but I do n't 
 like it taken up as a fad or a mission. It be- 
 comes too aggressive and offensive. You are 
 too young to go to dressing yourself like a 
 sister of charity. Stick to the bright emblems 
 of youth and enthusiasm and courage. You 
 will lose heart and hope soon enough. There 
 is a long stretch prosy midday and sober
 
 54 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 afternoon between now and night, when 
 your serious colors will be more in place 
 and harmony. There will be ' the burden and 
 the heat,' and 
 
 'The glimmer of twilight; 
 Never glad, confident morning again.'" 
 
 Sadie was touched, in spite of herself, but 
 she would not show it. 
 
 "How do you know those things? You 
 talk like a book, and people who talk in that 
 fashion we call prigs." 
 
 "I 'm not a prig; only a prophet." 
 
 "Men seem to think that woman's sole 
 excuse for being is to look, act, and dress to 
 please them." 
 
 "Certainly. I believe with Napoleon that 
 woman was made for man ; man for himself, 
 his country, and glory." 
 
 "I half believe you mean it. I wonder 
 you do n't go so far as to indorse Confu- 
 cius's doctrine, that women have no souls." 
 
 "No, not so bad as that, Sarah. I am 
 perfectly willing to admit that they have souls, 
 if you, on the other hand, will let them have 
 bodies 1"
 
 VJ. 
 
 was a moment's pause, such as 
 usually follows the entrance of a couple 
 
 of combatants within the space of the 
 
 X 
 
 arena. 
 
 Miss Spencer would fain have avoided the 
 contest, but it was bound to come ; and she 
 braced herself to meet the attack, and if pos- 
 sible, overcome her antagonist. 
 
 "Well," said she, slowly, "admitting, for 
 the sake of argument, that they have, does it 
 follow that life's aims and aspirations should 
 be kept entirely on the level of bodily needs? 
 Should all ideality and spirituality be ex- 
 cluded?" 
 
 "I do not object to ideality as an inspira- 
 tion for the development of a principle based 
 upon a stable foundation, nor to spirituality 
 which spiritualizes, uplifts, and refines ; but 
 nothing which is a mere idealism, built on a 
 rotten basis, founded on falsehood, has any 
 right to exist." 
 
 She became a trifle paler, but her voice 
 was quite steady as she said : 
 
 "An instance, please!" 
 
 55
 
 56 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 "Well, Sadie, you must not be angry, or 
 think I am personal in what I say. My ob- 
 servations are intended for application, not to 
 you particularly, but to the hybrid organiza- 
 tion with which you have become entangled. 
 The ideality and spirituality of 'Christian 
 Science,' so-called, is built from the beginning 
 upon an imposture and falsehood." 
 
 "I do not altogether grasp your meaning." 
 " I will try to make it clear. The Christian 
 scientists are careful to try to impress upon us 
 the similarity of their cures to the miraculous 
 ones of Christ and his disciples; they do not 
 discredit those former cures even recount 
 them. Some of the converts to your doctrine 
 are professing Christians and members of 
 Churches ; but do they, or do you, consider 
 that your creed has no relation to the New 
 Testament doctrines of the incarnation, atone- 
 ment, and resurrection? None, in fact, to the 
 Old Testament, with its doctrine of mono- 
 theism and history of the creation? None 
 to any revealed religion believed in by any 
 body of people with whom the Bible, or what 
 is recorded in it, has anything special to 
 do, whether they be Jew or Gentile? All 
 God! It is Pantheism. It is Buddhism. It 
 is in no sense or particular Christian. One
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 57 
 
 only needs to dip, here and there, into the 
 pages of your scriptures to determine this fact. 
 In them, Christ, like all the rest of us, is de- 
 nied a personal existence in the flesh. Does 
 not the 'Platform' of your sect, laid broadly 
 down in ' Science and Health,' Vol. II O, you 
 see a lawyer must have a tenacious memory, 
 and retain facts as they are! say that 'God 
 is supreme, the only life, substance, and intel- 
 ligence of the universe and man;' that 'if a 
 portion of the Infinite could enter limits, that 
 portion would lose the nature of Deity?' Tell 
 me, now, isn't that sweeping away the world's 
 Redeemer, the Christian's Savior, the impreg- 
 nable Rock upon which the entire Christian 
 system is built, with the besom of destruction? 
 " You slay Christ, you crucify him as cruelly 
 and unquestionably as did his enemies of old, 
 and then try to masquerade in the seamless 
 garment for which you cast lots at the foot of 
 the cross. You deny him he is not in your 
 entire theology the Christ of the Bible ; and 
 yet you would put on the robe of revered re- 
 spectability with which his religion is almost 
 everywhere received to-day, and, in it, deceive 
 the world as to your claims to Christian con- 
 sideration, while you climb up some other 
 way, to enter in as a thief and a robber."
 
 58 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 She put up her hand to stay the impetuous 
 torrent of his words. "Listen!" she said. 
 " Hear what one of our writers has said on 
 that subject: 'He was the son of God; and 
 what does it mean to be the son of God? God 
 is good hence good is God. So good was the 
 creator of everything; so good was, is, and 
 will be the Heavenly Father of all his cre- 
 ations.'"* 
 
 He looked at her wonderingly for a mo- 
 ment, and then burst into a scoffing laugh. 
 
 "How lucid a definition! How consoling, 
 how full of comfort to the lost and doubting 
 soul, sick of its miseries and its sins, seeking 
 where He may be found who is the express 
 image of the Father looking for the proof 
 that he was miraculously born to save it from 
 its sins! 
 
 "You claim, I believe, that God being good, 
 it would have been contrary to all laws for 
 him to have produced anything unlike him- 
 self. According to that, all men are equally, 
 and in the same sense, the sons of God. The 
 only difference seems to be that the rest of 
 them sinned, and 'came short of his glory.' 
 How happens it, then, if there is 'no evil,' 
 
 *" Mind-healing," Kate Taylor.
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 59 
 
 that they ever sinned, or, that this other cre- 
 ation Christ who was, in no different sense, 
 his son, did not sin likewise? And if all hu- 
 man creatures are but mere emanations from 
 God, who 'is the only life, substance, and in- 
 telligence of the universe,' how comes it that 
 these emanations from a being all-good are 
 from earliest childhood and infancy prone to 
 evil? That you can scarcely begin early 
 enough in life with Christian teaching to avoid 
 the necessity of being obliged to overthrow 
 and subvert evil ideas and practices? One 
 would expect, if the human soul is a direct 
 emanation from Him, to find it, when but a 
 short time released from contact with his great 
 personality, strong in his might, dimpled with 
 his touch, pure with his supreme purity." 
 
 "Are not children innocent?" 
 
 "Yes, while incapable, through ignorance 
 and physical disability, of being sinful. I 
 don't know how it was with you, but one of 
 the first things I remember concerning myself 
 was of doing something I ought not to have 
 done. No; I'll amend that statement: The 
 first thing I remember was the desire to do 
 wrong, which preceded the act. 
 
 "Tell me, Sadie, do you never feel afraid 
 that your Christ, being different from the rest
 
 60 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 of mankind only in degree, not kind, may, 
 after all, not have been what you think he 
 was? If Christ's mighty works can be dupli- 
 cated by you, to-day, so full of ignorance, 
 faults, errors, sins, as you are, and as all human 
 creatures are, how do those works attest his 
 purity or his power? He but shared in the 
 common gift of God to man. How can you be 
 sure, even, knowing what you do of humanity 
 in its present stage, and in that stage when he 
 was here among men, that he differed even 
 in degree; that he was not a great impostor? 
 Nothing could be more probable than this, if 
 your 'platform' states a fundamental truth of 
 your doctrine. I refer to that passage which 
 declares that ( if the infinite could enter limits, 
 that portion would lose the nature of Deity.' 
 So you see, by your own reasoning, or, rather 
 that to which you subscribe, that our Savior 
 the Word that was made flesh, that was orig- 
 inally with God, and that was God can not, 
 under any rational construction be made to 
 do duty for the Christ of Christian Science." 
 
 She fidgeted in her seat a moment, then re- 
 plied : 
 
 " ' Made flesh !' We hold, as you well know, 
 that the flesh is a 'very evident seeming,' and 
 the Bible, itself, tells us that he came in 'the
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 6 1 
 
 likeness of sinful flesh.' As you are aware, 
 the Bible is an Oriental work, often dealing 
 in hyperboles of expression, by means of which 
 a seeming might very easily be confounded 
 with a being, in figures of speech." 
 
 " But, how could he be in the likeness of 
 what did not exist? The Scripture hyperboles 
 are used in the poetical comparisons of the 
 Bible; never in its history. God is recorded 
 as having made a personal man out of the 
 dust of the earth. Through what gradations, 
 we can only judge. He did not throw off an 
 emanation to be again absorbed into himself. 
 He made a personal man; and I may believe 
 it and like it, or I may disbelieve it and dis- 
 like it, but the Bible says that this soul 
 breathed into man is to be disposed of, finally, 
 according to man's conduct. If it is in ac- 
 cordance with God's law and Christ's teach- 
 ing, it (a separate, individual soul) will go 
 where God is. If not, this devil you deny will 
 take charge of it. So, you will observe, that 
 neither the inception, trend, nor outcome of 
 your theology is Christian. If man is but an 
 emanation from God, and God can not be con- 
 fined in a human body, and there is no human 
 body anyhow to be confined in, man does not 
 exist, and can not be held accountable. And
 
 62 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 Christianity teaches that he does exist, and is 
 accountable. You must admit there is a 'very 
 evident seeming.' " 
 
 "The Scriptures somewhere say that 'God 
 is, and is to be, All in all.' " 
 
 " Meaning that he is and ever will be Ab- 
 solute Ruler over all, and furnishes the 'per- 
 sistent force,' sustaining all, that the Agnostics 
 talk about. Flora Hollister lent me one of 
 her books the other day Flora wants to 
 convert me and I found that the definition 
 of Adam was 'error, falsity, the belief in 
 original sin, sickness, and death,' and a great 
 deal more to the same effect. Now if that 
 was what Adam was, what caused Eve to be- 
 lieve he was a personal man? She, at least, 
 had none of the influence of the thoughts of 
 those around her, bearing upon her mind and 
 coloring its opinions, nor yet that of preced- 
 ing generations." 
 
 "But does not the subsequent history of 
 the race prove that that is just what Adam 
 was?" asked she, triumphantly. 
 
 "Not if, as you say, there is no heredity; 
 not if we carry out the deductions to be drawn 
 from the premises these so-called Scientists 
 have laid down. If there is no matter, and 
 all spirit is God, why then Adam, not having
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 63 
 
 any body and his soul not being his own, it 
 simply was God, not Adam, who was the 
 author of 'error, falsity, the belief in original 
 sin, sickness, and death.' Is that the God of 
 the Bible?" 
 
 "About Adam: To material sense he was 
 matter ; to spiritual sense, an idea of God's 
 an expression of his being. Regarding this 
 existence of evil which came through Adam, 
 in the language of one of our authors, 'the 
 answer to this question is of little importance ; 
 it is a waste of time.' "* 
 
 "A good way to dispose of the question! 
 But I did not expect an answer to that to 
 which nobody can really reply; especially 
 that sect which disposes of the devil with as 
 great facility as it makes way with the flesh. 
 What I started out to prove to you was, that 
 you are not Christians and not Scientists. 
 Your platform maintains that ' there is neither 
 a personal Deity, a personal devil, nor a per- 
 sonal man.' If no personal Deity, Christ is 
 not, to you, God manifest in the flesh. You 
 are not, then, Christian ; for in him, says the 
 Bible, 'dwelleth all the fullness of the God- 
 head bodily.' 
 
 "That you are not Scientists, proceeding 
 
 *" Mind-Healing; or, Self hood Lost in Godhood," p. 4.
 
 64 ffIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 upon actual, indisputable knowledge, goes 
 without proving. If you give the definition 
 of science which is 'truth ascertained,' 'pene- 
 trative and comprehensive information' to 
 your mystical theology, it is a mistaken as- 
 sumption. If to the inner personal influence 
 you exert in your endeavor to heal, it is an 
 open question as to whether any one of you 
 could give a lucid, substantial account of how 
 such cures as are brought about by you really 
 occur. Undoubtedly it all comes out of the 
 resolute withdrawal of the mind of the patient 
 from contemplation of his own ailments. 
 That will account for the cure of mental and 
 nervous difficulties. Organic diseases you do 
 not cure. And so far as the ignoring of nerv- 
 ous troubles by the patient is concerned, phy- 
 sicians knew and acted upon its value long 
 time ago." 
 
 " But how account for the cure of cases con- 
 trolled by absent treatment?" 
 
 "I account for them by declaring such a 
 thing the most arrant and insufferable non- 
 sense !" 
 
 She colored redly, and the green sugges- 
 tion in her eyes preponderated over the blue ; 
 but she controlled herself, and replied : 
 
 " Facts will not bear you out in that state-
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 65 
 
 ment. Many people, who did not know they 
 were under treatment, have been reached and 
 cured in this manner." 
 
 "The world is wide, Sadie, and God and 
 man have many resources. There are ex- 
 citant causes in a human mind and body in 
 Omaha, that some alleged healer in New York 
 can know nothing about. As to whether so- 
 called ' absent treatment ' from New York cured 
 that disease in Omaha, is 'absolutely unknow- 
 able.' Such evidence as could be produced 
 in favor of a case like that, would not stand 
 in any court of justice, or weigh with any jury 
 under the sun. The sole value of 'treatment' 
 of this kind does and must lie in the effect 
 produced upon the patient's mind ; and if the 
 patient is unconscious of any treatment, there 
 can be no effect." 
 
 "You say my statement is not susceptible 
 of proof. Very well ; we will leave that, then, 
 for the present. But I take issue with you on 
 the assertion that we do not cure organic dis- 
 eases. You know, of course, that I am not a 
 fair sample to judge by. My practice has 
 been small and limited as yet; but I* have 
 seen some of our own townspeople cured of 
 liver complaints, bronchial troubles, and rheu- 
 matism; and one man testifies that he has 
 
 6
 
 66 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 been relieved of a ringing in his ears that had 
 lasted for two years, and threatened to destroy 
 his hearing." 
 
 "Perhaps; but, as I said before, you are 
 not real physicians, and you do not know what 
 other causes may have been at work in com- 
 bating those troubles. Taking one's attention 
 off a pain, rheumatic or otherwise, often re- 
 lieves it; and if a man can make up his 
 mind I say if he can that he has no mus- 
 cles or nerves, and, consequently, they can 
 not be rheumatic, he has arrived at a condi- 
 tion of existence that even rheumatism will 
 not flourish in. A man becomes very peculiar 
 under such circumstances. As to the ringing 
 ear, the disease was probably in the auditory 
 nerve; and the history of cases like that, I 
 once heard an aurist say, shows that the mo- 
 ment the mind begins to dwell on it, the ear 
 begins to ring. If the mind can be amused, 
 entertained, and made to dwell upon something 
 else, sometimes the ear will not ring for weeks ; 
 but let the person sit down at the end of that 
 time and think about it, and it is as tuneful as 
 ever. You heard him testify on an 'off' day. 
 The entire structure of your faith is built on 
 nebulous foundations." 
 
 " Of course," said she, smiling a little con-
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 67 
 
 strainedly, "if you impeach the testimony, and 
 there is no umpire to arbitrate, I have nothing 
 further to say. I would like to ask you, 
 though, why you speak so disdainfully of 
 Buddhism ? Whac could have been more 
 beautiful or elevating than the religion which 
 Buddha taught? which he experienced when 
 he said, 'I, Gautama Buddha, devote myself 
 to righteousness, so that I may arrive at the 
 highest Nirvana.' Quotations I have read 
 from old Buddhistic verse are very like in 
 sentiment to the Christian hymns of to-day, 
 stating the fleetness of life and the rest of the 
 righteous after death." 
 
 "Yes," said he, dryly, "providing they es- 
 cape ill Karma and re-birth, are absorbed, as 
 the Buddhist offspring (the advocates of Chris- 
 tian Science) hope to be, in the All-good. 
 Buddha, according to his light, taught a beau- 
 tiful philosophy of self-restraint and renunci- 
 ation gave warning, with no uncertain sound, 
 that 
 
 'Our deeds follow us from afar, 
 And what we have been, makes us what we are.' 
 
 But when that which is perfect is come, why 
 seek truth in that which is only in part? 
 Why go back to the morning twilight when 
 searching for truth, when its full sun has
 
 68 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 arisen? All the old philosophers can shame 
 us with the renunciatory doctrines upon which 
 they built up lives of austere rectitude. Do n't 
 stop with Buddha. Go through the entire list. 
 All groping in the darkness for the God we 
 know. Aurelius Antoninus had meditations 
 on virtue that thrill even the Christian soul. 
 What gave Socrates the power calmly to drink 
 the hemlock bowl? -I do not disdain Buddha's 
 truths only point out his errors. Do you 
 refuse to see the similarity between those 
 errors and the doctrine which you profess, 
 comparing the two ? Here is an excerpt from 
 Buddhism very much to the point : ' So through 
 endless ages yet to come, discharging these 
 sacred duties, all sentient creatures, united at 
 length with the divine essence, shall obtain 
 supreme wisdom the state that admits of no 
 birth, the wisdom of Buddha himself.' But 
 since you may have a prejudice against the 
 title of Buddhism, why not adopt that of Spi- 
 nozism? Although I do n't see why you should 
 be thus prejudiced, when Arnold's ' L/ight of 
 Asia ' has been recommended as a poem to be 
 read ( in the light of this truth.' Spinoza, 
 in the seventeenth century, taught that God 
 ' is the cause of all things that exist, but not 
 a different being from them ; that there is only
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 69 
 
 6ne Being and one nature;' and, as in Chris- 
 tian science, the Deity is made sole agent in 
 all evil as well as good. One of these teach- 
 ers was a Hindoo, the other an Amsterdam 
 Jew ; bnt what is there in the Pantheistic in- 
 struction of either to which you dare attach 
 the title Christian?" 
 
 " What 's in a name?" queried she, lightly. 
 " It's the doctrine, not the name." 
 
 " Not much in the name, unless it be used 
 to convey a falsehood, which in this case it is. 
 Why, if you were to go back to Orpheus, the 
 earliest Grecian pantheist, who called the en- 
 tire world the 'body of God,' and its several 
 parts his members; or Aristotle, who agreed 
 with him, claiming the co-eternity of God and 
 matter, you find no such monstrous inconsis- 
 tencies as your doctrine teaches. Plain pan- 
 theism is entitled to a degree of respect which 
 Christian science can not and does not com- 
 mand from the thinking mind. When you 
 say, as I have been reading in your creed, that 
 'the devil, or evil, is darkness, and Good, or 
 God, the Infinite Mind, is but another name 
 for light,' wherein do you differ from those 
 whose names I have mentioned ?" 
 
 "But, Francis, I have been looking more 
 at the works we do, than at all this back-
 
 70 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 ground you have been sketching in. You 
 should believe our cause to be good 'for the 
 very works' sake.' " 
 
 "The 'works,' as you call them, look spe- 
 cious, where they appear at all ; but we have 
 an infallible standard by which to pronounce 
 judgment on them. The great apostle of 
 Christianity, in writing to the Roman Gentiles, 
 tells them that, ' if the first fruit be holy, the 
 lump is also holy ; and if the root be holy, so 
 are the branches.' Now, the 'first fruit' ap- 
 pearing in your platform says that, ' if a portion 
 of the Infinite could enter limits, that portion 
 would lose the nature of Deity.' That, in it- 
 self, proves the 'lump' not Christian, and the 
 works arising from some other source, super- 
 induced by some other power. Why, you 
 surely remember how Pharaoh's magicians 
 imitated the miracles wrought through Moses? 
 Can not you see that you have been making 
 unwarranted attempts at grafting the branches 
 of a wild olive-tree on the trunk and root to 
 which its very 'first fruit' is entirely alien? 
 I will tell you what I think of these 'works,' 
 and what most of the relapses and deaths, 
 occurring after the patients have been pro- 
 nounced cured by them, go far toward proving. 
 I believe it is along this particular line that
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 71 
 
 Satan finds one of the grandest opportunities 
 of all the ages in which to appear as an angel of 
 light, and deceive, if it were possible, the 
 very elect. I think these ' works ' are, for the 
 most part, but a 'very evident seeming.' Only 
 one word more, and that is this: Be careful 
 what you do ! I am not a very spiritual man, 
 and a poor sort of Christian, as Christians 
 go ; but I should hesitate about rejecting the 
 Christian religion for Pantheism, or about 
 grafting on to it something so foreign to that 
 which Jesus and his disciples taught. Your 
 gospel is very different from that enunciated 
 by Paul, who said : ' But though we, or an 
 angel from heaven, preach any other gospel 
 unto you, than that .which we have preached 
 unto you, let him be' 'accursed,' the Old 
 Version has it ; ' anathema,' the New. Think 
 about that, Sadie." 
 
 A silence that could almost be felt so pro- 
 found was it settled upon the occupants of 
 the little boat. 
 
 Sadie sat unusually erect ; offended pride, 
 or wounded feeling it was difficult to tell 
 which quite discernible in both her attitude 
 and expression. 
 
 But, whichever it might have been, Francis 
 Bartlett could not forbear a sentiment of ad-
 
 72 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 miration for the self-control which she had 
 exercised throughout the interview, and still 
 manifested, although, as he considered, de- 
 feated in the argument. He did not stop to 
 think that perhaps if the talking had been 
 more equalized, she might have been able to 
 give a little better showing to her side of the 
 case, deplorable as it looked. 
 
 They had been very slowly moving down 
 the stream as they talked, but Mr. Bartlett 
 now quickened the rate of their speed by bend- 
 ing to the work with considerable assumption 
 of energy. 
 
 How straight his back! how square the 
 set of his slightly-lifted shoulders ! He swung 
 evenly from the seat as if hinged there. 
 There was rhythm, poetry, beauty, in his 
 movement. 
 
 After a few moments' silence, Miss Spencer 
 spoke again : 
 
 "There is one thing I wish to say to you. 
 My visit to the Epperts is not altogether of 
 the nature of a relief expedition, as I told 
 you. There is something else connected with 
 it. I do not wish to give you a false im- 
 pression." 
 
 "Well, if you did give a wrong impression, 
 probably you knew you had Scripture warrant
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR, 73 
 
 for it. You know when the Lord sent Sam- 
 uel down to Bethlehem to anoint David, he 
 told him to make Saul's mind easy by giving 
 out only a part of the reason for which he 
 was going." 
 
 He felt, when he said this, that it was very 
 probable that she did n't know ; that perhaps 
 she had never read it for herself, and if she 
 had heard it from the pulpit, had forgotten. 
 I think that, mixed up with other motives, he 
 was trying to impress upon her that he was 
 rather bright and knowing, and possessed of 
 considerable information upon various subjects. 
 If so, it must have been a little mortifying to 
 have had her remark : 
 
 "Yes; you said that, I remember, in your 
 last campaign speech, your plea in the Gun- 
 ning case, and one or two others that I 
 recall." 
 
 "O come, now! Was it so bad as that? 
 I did n't know I ever sacrificed that red heifer 
 in public but once." 
 
 "What I wished to say was, that " 
 
 "You are going to doctor Joe?" 
 
 " No, sir ! I have no masculine patients, at 
 present. I do not go to 'doctor' any one; 
 but his little daughter is lying, seemingly, 
 very ill. She is a patient of Mrs. Morris's 
 
 7
 
 74 ff IS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 one of the graduates of our class and Mrs. 
 Morris was obliged to go East on account of 
 her father's illness ; he has since died. She 
 desired me to take charge of the case, but I 
 declined. She will give her absent treatment ; 
 but she asked me if I would not come and 
 see her sometimes, and talk to her, and well, 
 try to encourage her. It is no falsehood, 
 however, about their needs. Joe, as you call 
 him, has has the belief that he has inflam- 
 matory rheumatism. He has not worked for 
 a long time, and they are very poor." 
 
 " I 'm sorry for him, I 'm sure ; but the 
 hen-roosts in this part of the country are not 
 so likely to suffer while he suffers. What is 
 the matter with the child?" 
 
 " 'Liza? Why, the the people around her 
 must have impressions that affect her concern- 
 ing heredity. Her mother Joe's wife is her 
 stepmother died, seemingly of lung trouble. 
 'Liza seems to have a cough, and the usual 
 symptoms that go with it. I " 
 " The child has consumption." 
 Miss Spencer shrugged her shoulders. 
 "No wonder," said she, " that people think 
 they are sick and die, so long as the world's 
 thought clings to a belief in evil and sick- 
 ness, and is expressed in so bald a manner."
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 75 
 
 "Who is Mrs. Morris? Not the tailor's 
 widow?" 
 
 "I believe he once did that kind of work, 
 but not for some years before his death." 
 
 " I know whom you mean. A good, ami- 
 able, motherly creature, without one grain of 
 scientific or medical knowledge in her whole 
 make-up. ' Angels and ministers of grace de- 
 fend us !' Do you mean that 'Liza is lying 
 there in bed, dying of consumption, and that 
 all she has to relieve or help her is the ' ab- 
 sent treatment' of a woman like that?" 
 
 " Like that ! What do you intend me to 
 infer from that?" 
 
 " Why, nothing against her character, nor 
 her ordinary grade of intelligence, but a very 
 great deal against her pretensions as a healer. 
 Mrs. Morris to do away with the physicians! 
 
 ' Can such things be, 
 And overcome us like a summer cloud, 
 Without our special wonder ?' " 
 
 "We will not discuss Mrs. Morris, if you 
 please. I see we are almost at our stopping- 
 place. There ! Bring up alongside that flat 
 rock to the left." 
 
 When he had helped her out, Francis Bart- 
 lett lifted from the bottom boards of the boat 
 a basket and bundles of supplies, and then
 
 76 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 took the string of fish in the hand on which 
 he wore the sard ring with the knight's head 
 in intaglio. As he did so, Miss Spencer saw 
 that the palm of it was very red, and looked 
 suspiciously as if a blister had been raised 
 upon it. He had worn no gloves, and his 
 hands were tender from disuse. 
 
 " This way," said she ; " I will follow."
 
 |HE Epperts, en famille, were at home. 
 The master of the house, just able to 
 hobble about and warm his acidulated 
 blood in the outdoor air, was sitting out- 
 side his small whitewashed, vine-covered log 
 house, on which the morning-glory blossoms 
 of purple and pink were still half open. It 
 'was one of those houses still to be found in 
 the rural districts of some of the Middle and 
 Western States, with the chimney attached on 
 the outside, looking as if the chimney had 
 first been built and the house accommodated 
 to it. 
 
 " Rather modern," remarked the young man 
 as they approached. " It looks as if here might 
 be a center and school of advanced thought 
 and cultured opinions." 
 
 "The disciples you talk so much about 
 were ignorant fishermen." 
 
 "Yes; following a teacher, a leader, who 
 'spake as never man spake.' They were not 
 reconstructing for themselves a religion and 
 immortality out of their own ignorance and 
 the ignorance of the ancients." 
 
 77
 
 78 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 "Joe" sat in one chair, with his lame leg 
 carefully deposited upon another in front of 
 him. He held in one hand a stout hickory 
 stick, which served the dual purpose of as- 
 sisting him in locomotion and as a means of 
 self-defense from the intrusion of any and all 
 of the two or three half-clad, tow-headed chil- 
 dren engaged in a game of "tag," rushing in 
 and out of a thriving grove of sunflowers 
 which surrounded the doorway. 
 
 He looked like a man who had drunk 
 whisky until he had become what is known, 
 in common parlance, as an "old soak." His 
 coat was ragged, his trousers glazed and 
 shiny ; and his soiled check-shirt, open at the 
 throat, showed a flabby neck and hirsute 
 breast. Upon the whole, Mr. Eppert's ap- 
 pearance might be denominated as unsavory. 
 
 "You 'tarnal young 'uns," cried he, as one 
 of the children ran against the chair on which 
 his foot was resting, "ef yer don't make 
 tracks from here, I '11 brain the lot of ye !" 
 
 "This must be nice for 'Liza," said 
 Francis. 
 
 " Polly ! Polly !" called he, as he saw Mr. 
 Bartlett approaching, loaded with supplies, and 
 closely followed by Miss Spencer. 
 
 A lean, lank woman, in a faded calico
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 79 
 
 dress, from which all the color had been 
 washed in some long-forgotten time, came, 
 and put her head out of the door. 
 
 She had coarse, straight black hair, which 
 had first been tied with a shoe-string at the 
 back, with the tags in full view ; then twisted 
 and put up with that reminiscence of the past, 
 a tuck-comb. 
 
 Her complexion was like that of women 
 who live in the dry air and constantly blow- 
 ing wind of the far West brown, wrinkled, 
 and dry, like parchment. 
 
 Her eye had a vague, speculative, far-off 
 look. Francis and Sadie both felt as if she 
 was giving too long a range to her glance to 
 focus it fully on them. 
 
 "This yere is Lawyer Bartlett, old 'ooman," 
 said Joe, performing the ceremony of intro- 
 duction, "an' I reckon yer know as who the 
 young 'ooman is. I 've seen her yere before." 
 
 " Why, howdy, sir ! Howdy, Miss Spencer ! 
 It 's a poor place you 've come to, but walk 
 right in. The world 's a-movin', and ' the 
 rich and the poor meet together, and the Lord 
 is the Maker of them all,' " said she, piously. 
 "Jest aige around behind Josiah's cheer. 
 His laig is like yer eye to tech it, it 's that 
 swelled an' sore."
 
 80 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 "Ye 're welcome, sir; and you too, ma'am," 
 said Josiah, with his eyes on the basket and 
 bundles and the fish. "Didn't expect ter 
 have the honor, sir, of receivin' you under 
 this yere 'umble roof." And he extended a 
 spare, yellow hand, with knotted and distorted 
 joints. 
 
 Francis took k gingerly, but Sadie acted 
 on her theory of "no matter," and failed to 
 see it at all ; though her own pretty, slender 
 hands were well protected from possible 
 contact with long-wristed gloves of un- 
 dressed kid. 
 
 "D'ye 'low you kin sqeeze a-past me? 
 It 's like movin' a meetin'-house ter move 
 me ! I use' ter tell Polly she 's set in her 
 ways; but she sez I'm 'setter,' now. Polly 
 likes ter have her little joke. He ! he ! he !" 
 
 The idea of a joke in connection with 
 Polly was an incongruous one, as she gazed 
 at them with that complacent, melancholy, 
 lack-of-focus gaze. 
 
 They "aiged a-past" and into the main 
 room of the house, utilized as kitchen, parlor, 
 and bedroom for the entire family, with the 
 exception of 'Liza, who was as neatly and 
 comfortably arranged for as the circumstances 
 of the case admitted, in the room beyond.
 
 HIS COUSIN, ^THE DOCTOR. 8 1 
 
 Even this apartment, despite its many and 
 various uses, was scrupulously clean. 
 
 In waging a war of extermination against 
 dirt, Mrs. Eppert always stopped short of 
 Josiah. Something seemed to tell her that 
 ammunition made use of in that direction 
 would be wasted. 
 
 Francis Bartlett made a very polite little 
 speech to Mrs. Eppert in presenting the par- 
 cels and fish, and said (with as much truth 
 as is usually to be sifted out of such re- 
 marks) that he was "sorry to see Joe so 
 broken up." 
 
 " Thank ye, sir. It 's jest like Miss Spencer 
 to bring them things jest like her; an' the 
 Lord knows that there 's need enough of 'em. 
 Yes, Josiah 's been porely all spring, 'n so far 
 this summer. Tears like we can 't get him 
 out of the notion of it. Butterworth says it 's 
 the sigh-attic nerve that 's out o' kelter ; but 
 I say that what Josiah needs is to take his 
 mind offer hisself. I says to him this morn- 
 ing, says I, 'Josiah, you must take your mind 
 offer yourself, if you ever 'low ter sense it that 
 ye 're well.' " 
 
 Josiah broke in, from the open doorway : 
 
 " Polly 's got a great jaw on 'er. I 'low 
 she c'd talk all day. But how in creation, if
 
 82 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 you '11 excuse me, Miss, can a feller take his 
 mind offer hisself, when he feels like he 's all 
 tied up in knots, an' the devil 's a-pinchin' 
 him with red-hot pinchers? How kin ye 
 keep your mind off er yerself, when ye 're one 
 big pain all over, an' there ain't room in yer 
 mind for nothin' else but to think on 't?" 
 
 "There ain't no devil, Josiah !" said Mrs. 
 Eppert. 
 
 " What are you doing for your rheumatism, 
 Joe?" asked Mr. Bartlett, from the wooden 
 rocking-chair where Mrs. Eppert had seated 
 him. 
 
 "That's jest it," said he, reaching into his 
 pocket for a plug of tobacco, and biting off a 
 generous chew ; after which he extended it 
 in the direction of Mr. Bartlett, who dismissed 
 it with a wave of his hand. 
 
 "That's jest it. I had Butterworth up 
 here a couple o' times, an' he 'lowed there 's 
 too much acid in my blood. He left me a 
 kind er surrup to take internally, and some 
 sort o' lin'ment to rub on out ternally, but 
 them there young 'uns, they broke the bottle 
 a-'raslin' ; and nex' time I sent for ter have 
 some more, he wanted ter know who 's 
 a-goin' to be responsible for the pay, and 
 he did n't send more 'n a thimbleful. Folks
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 83 
 
 ain't mostly like you 'uns so generous 
 like." 
 
 Another wave of dismissal from the young 
 lawyer, and the man returned to his favorite 
 theme: 
 
 " That 's jest it. The old 'ooman, she de- 
 clared as how I did n't need no med'cine. 
 She said my laig did n't ache, 'cause I had n't 
 got no laig. She " 
 
 " Josiah do n't 'pear to understand nothin' 
 erbout spirichual things," said his wife, look- 
 ing past them with her gaze of placid melan- 
 choly. "He don't reelize that there ain't no 
 matter, nohow ; and that what ain't, can 't 
 hurt." 
 
 Francis stole a look at Sadie. He could 
 only see her profile as she sat, but the cheek 
 turned toward him looked a fiery red, and her 
 expression, so far as he could discern, seemed 
 disturbed and a trifle vexed. But she sat very 
 straight and stiff. 
 
 He wondered if all this twaddle, in its 
 coarser form, did not disgust and dishearten 
 her with this senseless, scienceless chimera 
 she had so eagerly embraced. 
 
 "I thought you said," continued he, "that 
 Joe's leg was swollen, and very sore to the 
 touch?"
 
 84 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 "Well, sir, speakin' arfter the manner o' 
 men, I s'pose it is that a way ; but, to tell 
 you the plain, ungarnished truth, Josiah 's in 
 a state of dishann'ny, an' when ye 're in a state 
 o' disharm'ny, you do n't need no med'cine. 
 Yer jest need to be harm'nized. Miss Bower- 
 sock, what lectured on Chrischen Science at the 
 Hall in Easterville, jest larfed when Josiah's 
 son-in-law, Jim McMurdy, told her what But- 
 terworth said about its bein' the sigh-attic 
 nerve. 'Nothin', with a pain in it!' said she; 
 ' that 's one of the beatin'est mysteries I ever 
 heerd tell on.' And then Jim giv' her ten 
 dollars, off hand, as he 'd saved up ; and she 
 told him to persuade Josiah not to take no 
 more med'cine, and she 'd giv' him absent 
 treatment. And if Josiah 'd only take his 
 mind off er his seemin' self, I know he 'd begin 
 ter pick up." 
 
 Miss Spencer broke in, speaking swiftly 
 and determinedly: 
 
 " Mr. Eppert should hold himself vigor- 
 ously ' to his right of soul-growth, unob- 
 structed and unretarded by physical defects,' 
 as one of our writers truly says. Invalidism 
 would not reward his highest efforts in this 
 direction. Do you exercise 'expectant atten- 
 tion?' You know you should do this."
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 85 
 
 Francis grinned a little under his mustache 
 as he looked in Joe's direction. If this was 
 a pearl of wisdom, it had certainly been cast 
 under a hoof. Joe was scratching his head, 
 with a dazed and bewildered look. 
 
 " I reckon you 're right, Miss, but I do n't 
 seem ter sense it adzactly." 
 
 Francis pitied' his erstwhile antagonist, and 
 gave a turn to the conversation by suggesting 
 that Mrs. Eppert dress some of the fish for 
 supper, while Miss Spencer went in to see the 
 little girl. 
 
 " And if nobody objects, I would like to go 
 in and be introduced to her myself." 
 
 If any one objected, the objection remained 
 unspoken, and Sadie and he went through the 
 door into the little room beyond. 
 
 How a child of Joe's could be pretty Francis 
 did not understand ; but 'Liza was like a swan 
 in a duck-pond. 
 
 " Her inarm was better looking than I am, 
 I reckon," said Mrs. Eppert when she saw the 
 young man's look of admiring surprise at the 
 first sight of 'Liza. 
 
 She was about thirteen years of age, so 
 frail and slender that he almost feared to take 
 the hand she held out to him lest it should 
 break in his clasp. Her complexion was
 
 86 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 ghostly white ; she had great, violet eyes and 
 long, black lashes ; and short, black hair of 
 exceeding fineness, that curled in delicate 
 rings all over her head. Her cheeks were a 
 vivid scarlet, for she was burning with fever; 
 and when she began to speak to Miss Spencer, 
 a cough interrupted her. 
 
 " Now, 'Liza," said Sadie, brightly, " I 
 have brought something for you in this 
 basket." 
 
 She opened it beside the bed, and set out 
 a trio of jelly-glasses, with garnet and amber 
 contents. Next came a glass jar of rich Jer- 
 sey milk, some lemons, and a package of 
 sugar, a little majolica pitcher, filled with 
 broth, and, last of all, a big bunch of flowers, 
 of the choicest her aunt's garden afforded. 
 
 " They 're awful beautiful," said 'Liza, as 
 Sadie filled a mug standing in the window 
 with water, from a pail near at hand, and put 
 the blossoms into it, setting them where the 
 invalid could see them without turning her 
 head. 
 
 "Yes, dear," said Miss Spencer; "and 
 God's world is full of beauty and sunshine 
 and happiness ; is n't it?" 
 
 The child rolled her head restlessly on the 
 pillow, and her large, brilliant eyes glanced
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 87 
 
 toward the window from which the faded 
 calico curtain was partially drawn back. 
 
 " I donno. I s'pose it is because he made 
 it; but I don't feel so much of the sunshine 's 
 I do of the pain. Ye see the sunshine 's outer 
 doors, an' it comes an' goes ; but the pain an' 
 the cough, they stays by all the time." 
 
 " O no, my dear ; you must n't think of 
 pains and cough. You must say to yourself 
 that the world is full of God, and God and 
 good mean the same thing; that you are his 
 child and trying to please him, and that ke 
 gives you health and strength in return for 
 your obedience; that evil and sickness can 
 not touch you." 
 
 " That 's what Mis's Morris told me ; and 
 she said there was n't no sickness ; but when 
 she was a sayin' it there was a awful pain in 
 my side, so 't I screamed right out, an' then I 
 had ter set up in bed and cough and cough. 
 An' she said it was unfaith. Even marm was 
 scairt about me, an' brung me a lickrish drop 
 ter put in my mouth an' let the juice run 
 down my throat. But Mis's Morris, she car- 
 ried on awful. She said as how 't was wicked 
 ter interfere with God's cures with his own 
 childern." 
 
 Francis looked at Sadie, but she did not
 
 88 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 return his glance. She was raising the little 
 girl on her arm, as a paroxysm of coughing 
 was coming on. After it was over, the young 
 healer bent over the child and said : 
 
 " But you are getting better, you know." 
 
 " I donno. Sometimes I feel 's if I never 
 should get no better," panted the child. 
 " Won't yer wet a rag with cold water' n lay 
 it on my forrud? It's so hot." 
 
 Francis could see that the healer trembled 
 visibly. That little pleading voice was so 
 meek and melancholy and pitiful. 
 
 Sadie even moved a little, as if to grant 
 this request, but checked herself, and her voice 
 shook as she said, in a low tone : 
 
 "I wouldn't, dear, if I were you. It's 
 only an idea that water cools fever. Let God 
 have his own way with you." 
 
 He could stand no more of this. He 
 jumped up, and took from his pocket the 
 dainty napkin with the drawn-work on its 
 border, and holding it out of the window, 
 poured water over it until it was saturated 
 with the cooling fluid. Then he went and 
 laid it, smoothly folded, on the heated brow of 
 the child. 
 
 "I do n't think God will be displeased with 
 this," said he, in a strained, quiet voice.
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 89 
 
 "God was very good when lie made water to 
 quench thirst and cool fever and refresh the 
 parched body." 
 
 "O, how good it is ! how good it is !" 
 
 'Liza reached up her little, burning hand, 
 and put it over his, as it held the napkin to 
 her head. 
 
 Tears came into the young lawyer's eyes ; 
 but he winked them away, and said, in a 
 merry, pleasant tone : 
 
 "You mustn't let anybody fool you out of 
 having all the cold water you want, 'Liza. 
 Water 's free, thank heaven ! the world is full 
 of it, and a special blessing is promised to 
 those who give it to one of 'these little 
 ones.' " 
 
 He did not look to see how Sadie took this 
 interference on his part. He felt very bitter 
 toward her just then. What monsters these 
 healers must be, to be able to turn aside such 
 pleas as that, and what a monster they made 
 out this "All-good" to be ! 
 
 Francis Bartlett had never "spoken in meet- 
 ing," nor lifted his voice in prayer in public, 
 but now he said to 'Liza, softly : 
 
 "Did you ever hear of Jesus?" 
 
 "Oyes!" said the child, a light coming 
 into her listless eyes; "I like HIM ! Sunday-
 
 90 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 school teacher was here t' other day, 'n she 
 said as how he liked childern better 'n any- 
 body else, 'n called 'em his lambs ; an' how, 
 arfter they was dead, he was a-goin' ter make 
 'em alive ergin, an' give 'em a home in a 
 better world 'n this. An' she read me sum- 
 pin' 'bout 'em not bein' sick there no more, 
 nor nothin' bad, where he 's a-goin' ter take 
 'em. Yes, I like HIM ! I askt her if he 'd 
 a-let me take med'cine ter make me feel bet- 
 ter, if he 'd a-been here now ? an' she said 
 he 'd a-cured me his own self. I like Him 
 better 'n God, 'cause God do n't like it, Mis's 
 Morris says, 'f I do anything ter make me feel 
 better. I 'd like ter go to that a place where 
 He is !" 
 
 "Well, 'Liza, you be a good little girl, and 
 love Him, and one of these days you will 
 go there." 
 
 "That 'd be real nice, and I never did have 
 anything nice. Sumpin' always has hurted 
 me, ever since I knowed anything." 
 
 "Nothing will hurt you there, 'Liza; for 
 'they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy 
 mountain.' ' 
 
 "Is there mountins there? Is there moun- 
 tins?" asked the child, excitedly. "Marm 
 come from Pennsylvany, where there 's moun-
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 91 
 
 tins, an' I always did want to see moun- 
 tins." 
 
 "Yes, there are mountains, or something 
 like them, I think. But we must not tire 
 you, 'I/iza. You must eat Miss Spencer's 
 goodies, and try to feel better, and we 
 she will come to see you again, some day." 
 
 "Won't you come too, Mister? You'll 
 want ter git this pretty rag back ergin, an' 
 you kin tell me more about them mountins, 
 an' erbout Him. I like HIM." 
 
 "Yes, 'Liza, I '11 come, and I '11 try to see 
 if we can 't have something done to make you 
 feel better." 
 
 Mrs. Eppert had put the skillet over the 
 newly lighted fire in the adjoining room, and 
 a strong scent of lard, in the process of heat- 
 ing, saluted their nostrils. 
 
 Mr. Bartlett went out and talked earnestly 
 with Joe in a low tone, at the front door, 
 while Sadie made a last effort with the sick 
 child. 
 
 "You must love God, 'Liza, and try to 
 please him," said she. 
 
 A troubled look came into the large violet 
 eyes. 
 
 "I wisht I could love him better, Miss 
 if he only was like Him, I 'low I could now."
 
 93 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 "He is all goodness, 'Liza he wants you 
 to forget all about yourself, and about being 
 sick, and get well." 
 
 "I'll try, Miss, but it's tol'able hard for- 
 gittin," said she, mournfully. 
 
 Sadie said no more, but kissed her good- 
 bye, and went out; and she and Francis, 
 followed by many and voluble thanks, walked 
 down to the water together. 
 
 Neither of them spoke, except with the 
 briefest and most indifferent civility, and long 
 silences ensued. 
 
 There was now no dallying with the oars. 
 The sunset, magnificent and golden, was at 
 their backs, and Mr. Bartlett seemed bent upon 
 getting away from its enchanted region he 
 rowed so earnestly. 
 
 The banks were fringed with willows, oaks, 
 and poplars, 
 
 Turning up each silver side, 
 To the sunlight's mellow tide. 
 
 From the farms on either side, the meadows 
 sloped down to "the crick's" edge. Here and 
 there a mild-eyed cow, not yet "driven up," 
 was standing knee-deep in the lazy flood. 
 
 They dispersed a small fleet of snowy- 
 rigged geese, and put to flight an argosy of 
 quacking ducks. They skirted a reef of
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 93 
 
 sedge near shore, its crowding culms bannered 
 with iris. 
 
 % 
 
 And so, by degrees, they caine again to 
 their own lives and places. 
 
 As Fiancis helped Sadie ashore, he was 
 thinking: 
 
 "I wish 'Liza could see the 'inountins' I 
 lately saw." And then a couple of lines came 
 into his memory : 
 
 " Less blue than radiant, 
 Like angels' garments blanched with God." 
 
 But of what thought Sadie ? 
 Who knows ?
 
 MRANCIS BARTLETT had made up "his 
 
 gSf mind to let Sadie "go." As she had 
 J been "go "-ing up to this time, however, 
 ' P undeterred by whatever he might think 
 or feel, there would have seemed, to the 
 casual comprehension, very little in this reso- 
 lution, so savagely adopted, that would be 
 likely to influence the young lady's affairs in 
 any manner. And yet he felt somehow that 
 there was, and that she was thereby the loser. 
 
 For three whole weeks he stuck to the 
 office all day and every day ; and as he was 
 a young man who in general required fre- 
 quent holidays, the junior partner and the 
 clerk compared notes on the subject, and 
 wondered what was the matter with "the 
 old man." 
 
 Mrs. Weeks reaped the benefit of this dili- 
 gence, and several others who, like Hamlet, 
 had long been caviling at the "law's delays." 
 
 He and Sadie for a few days were very 
 
 stilted, and the relations between them were 
 
 strained when they met at table or about the 
 
 house; but gradually, as is usual among 
 
 94
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 95 
 
 people living under the same roof, things re- 
 solved themselves into an every-day natural- 
 ness, upon the surface, at least. 
 
 A few days after the episode of their visit 
 to the Epperts, Mr. Bartlett received a note 
 from Joe dirty, ill-scrawled, and worse 
 spelled which was constructed after this 
 fashion : 
 
 "mister bartLet. i hed a tuf time with 
 th old womn, but she aint her gal, nohow, an 
 she hed ter nuckle down becoz iin the man 
 uv my one hous, an i perpose ter do wat i 
 think best, lizy sens her luv. she thinks 
 yure the nices man she ever seen, buter- 
 worth sez shes gone to long ter git wel, but 
 he kin eze her up considble. The trusteas 
 wuz here ter see erbout helpin us, as you 
 sent, i told urn you was goin ter pay my 
 dockters bill an lizys so no more at presint 
 from josiah Bpert ter lawyer bartLet. June. 
 1889." 
 
 The recipient of this effusion folded it up, 
 and put it in his pocket-book with a half- 
 laugh. 'Liza's compliment had touched some- 
 thing in his nature that responded with a 
 feeling of joy. This doing for somebody else 
 had a pleasure about it he had never so fully 
 experienced before. He felt as happy as if
 
 96 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 he had been supporting a missionary orphan 
 in China or India. 
 
 Strict attention to truth demands the state- 
 ment that at this time Sarah Katherine 
 Spencer, Metaphysician and Healer, was deeply 
 troubled. 
 
 She was a person accustomed to act, from 
 early girlhood, upon her own responsibility, 
 without giving any great amount of thought 
 as to the point of view from which her action 
 would be scrutinized by " the man on the out- 
 side." Her aunt's rule, after she came to her 
 at the age of seventeen, had been lax and 
 gentle ; and the ten years' difference between 
 her age and that of her guardian had not 
 been sufficiently conspicuous to seem to jus- 
 tify him in interfering in any particular, save 
 where her money matters were concerned. 
 
 It is true that, up to the present period, 
 her independence had dealt simply with mat- 
 ters of personal taste and habit, and had never 
 before led her into a position where her con- 
 duct might be weighed, measured, and judged 
 with regard to the justice or injustice of the 
 effect it produced upon others. 
 
 She had been a girl of quick intelligence, 
 subtle wit, and fine fancy, but her emotions 
 had been slow in maturing.
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 97 
 
 The hour had come to her later than with 
 most young women of culture and education, 
 when the progeny of ideality began to plume 
 themselves for flight. And, coming later, it 
 furnished for these fledgelings more subtle 
 pinions, more intricate featherings, and in- 
 duced them to seek more dizzy heights. 
 
 The wave of modern fanaticism, miscalled 
 Christian Science, had reached its tidal-rise 
 at a time when her heart had become anxious 
 for something to absorb its affections, and her 
 mind longed for an object to guide and give 
 direction to its fretting ambitions. 
 
 If some one had been near her at this 
 critical hour, who, with clear logic and affec- 
 tionate persuasion, could, without displaying 
 too evident a purpose, have convinced her 
 that indorsement of such a doctrine was the 
 most futile Quixotism if its evils extended 
 no further than the folly line ; if she could 
 have been shown that her theory concerning 
 its possible blessings to humanity was as un- 
 founded as the Don's in regard to the origin 
 of Mambrino's helmet, she might never have 
 committed herself to so mistaken an en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 It was the real nobility of soul within her 
 which had responded so readily to the idea 
 9
 
 98 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 "All God! All good!" This philosophic ideal- 
 ism, with its formula of "no evil and no 
 death," had fascinated her generous, kindly 
 nature with the jubilant prospect of rising 
 above these two evils and limitations, which 
 make so much of human work and effort 
 weak and inefficient which appall the heart 
 that would otherwise be strong and intrepid. 
 
 She had said to herself, and others had 
 emphasized it, that she must work for some- 
 thing, for somebody, for this very cause ! 
 Work ! work ! work ! That is the clamorous 
 cry of this brazen-tongued age ; and how 
 many a wrecked life, goaded on by its insist- 
 ent and intolerant demand to work with which 
 God never meant it to identify itself, could 
 testify, with but slight change, in the language 
 of Madame Roland: "O work! how many 
 crimes are committed in thy name !" 
 
 The members of human society are not 
 content, like Joan of Arc, to listen simply to 
 the "voices" giving direction to their own 
 careers, but, like Peter, they insist on ques- 
 tioning, "And what shall this man do?" 
 without waiting to hear the divine reply, 
 "What is that to thee ?" 
 
 A convert like Miss Spencer could but give 
 prestige to a cause like this ; not her wealth
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 99 
 
 and position alone, but her intelligence and 
 education would fit her to champion its illusive 
 subtleties with less personal persecution than 
 might be met with by others. 
 
 So, step by step, scarcely knowing whither 
 she was led, the young girl, urged on by older 
 heads, became, first, a learner of this new 
 "Truth," then a teacher; and flattered and 
 encouraged, stepped out on the broad assump- 
 tion that she, like the apostles of old, could, 
 through Christian Science, heal the sick. 
 
 I think it is but fair to say of the majority 
 of these so-called healers, that, like Sadie 
 Spencer, "they know not what they do." 
 
 If I am rightly informed, a large number 
 of them are members of Christian Churches, 
 and in conduct of life are practical Chris- 
 tians ; quite regardless of any phase of the 
 subject, save that metaphysical one which, 
 under some conditions, by the exercise of 
 mind over matter and a species of hypnotism, 
 enables them to relieve some people of some 
 diseases. 
 
 If this were all that the so-called "science" 
 represents, it would in no way clash with the 
 claims of Christ and the Church upon them ; 
 but when it denies the existence of that evil 
 from which Christ came to deliver and redeem
 
 100 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 us, of that Body sacrificed for our sins, of 
 that Resurrection which is the world's only 
 proof that if a man die he shall live again, 
 they are in "a strait betwixt two." 
 
 When they dispense with the materiality 
 of the cities where Jesus's mighty works were 
 done ; when they sweep away that sea to 
 whose stormy waters he cried, "Peace, be 
 still;" when they banish that Cross by whose 
 blood we are "brought nigh" unto the Father; 
 when they ignore that holy tear which he 
 shed at the tomb of Lazazus ; when they 
 proclaim "Our Church is built on Christ, not 
 a person, but the principle that Christ said 
 is the way, the truth, and the life," they 
 have destroyed all that is Christian in 
 theology. 
 
 When "the Father" is represented as giv- 
 ing the body false and unreliable senses, which, 
 carry to the soul untrue impressions of the 
 earth which he has created ; when they treat 
 as a fraud upon our faith (giving no reason 
 for its perpetration) -this lovely world which 
 he has made, with its exquisite scenery, its 
 changing seasons, its beautiful embellish- 
 ments of flowers and shrubs, its provision of 
 fruits and grains, its mines of wealth, its 
 treasure-house of scientific truths waiting for
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. IOI 
 
 men to explore, discover, and appropriate ; 
 when it begets doubt of nature, upon which 
 the eternal truth of science rests, it blas- 
 phemes God and makes of him a liar! 
 
 O God of the Bible, who declarest thou 
 dost pity them that fear thee as a father has 
 compassion on his own children, for ab- 
 stract principles of universal Life, Truth, and 
 Love, said by this sect to be the one God, 
 man will not give thee up ! 
 
 O Jesus, our atonement, our peace, our re- 
 demption, and the one hope set before us ! 
 thou, whose blood-stained foot-prints mark 
 the pathway of human progress from the dust 
 to heaven, for an impersonal ideality bear- 
 ing thy name, but destitute of thy merits, 
 man will not give thee up ! 
 
 O Holy Spirit, blessed Comforter! Guide 
 to human ignorance, Solacer of human woe, 
 Enlightener of the darkness wherein sin 
 dwells, Accuser of the affections that hold it 
 dear, Revealer of the things of Christ to him 
 who will receive them, for a "divine sci- 
 ence, revealing and explaining this triune 
 principle," man will not give thee up ! 
 
 The religion of the ideal and the idea only 
 must ever be limited to the elect few, whose 
 mental aptitude or worldly situation incline
 
 102 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 them to and make possible the pursuit of 
 abstruse and chimerical speculations. If these 
 find such a religion lacking in those elements 
 which sustain, uphold, and cheer on life's 
 weary journey, they may find this lack com- 
 pensated for by the activity required of the 
 mind in its fruitless endeavor to grasp, under- 
 stand, and appropriate to human necessities 
 its peculiar and puzzling dicta. But it is to 
 the ear and heart of the great, toiling world, 
 struggling in the vortexes of labor, sin, and 
 misery, that the Fatherhood of God and 
 Brotherhood of Christ appeal, with the blessed 
 call : "Look unto me, all ye ends of the earth, 
 and be saved." 
 
 Miss Spencer had been prepared for crit- 
 icism, perhaps ridicule ; but of philippic, 
 such as Francis had launched against what 
 she represented, she was not at all ex- 
 pectant. 
 
 She had looked upon this assumption of 
 "no body" and "all God" as a sort of higher 
 Christian life ; regarded it as an advanced 
 religious state or condition, which it behooved 
 all believers to attain to as speedily as possi- 
 ble. She had not reflected that Christianity 
 could have no appeal from that authoritative 
 utterance, "I am the Way, the Truth, and
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 103 
 
 the Life," while she read mystic philosophies 
 in order to discover the "Truth." 
 
 But the bold utterance of those words, 
 "You are not Christians!" had brought her 
 dreamy, misty fancies up against a very lofty 
 mural obstruction. 
 
 Was the doctrine, then, unchristian? Did 
 it, indeed, conflict with the revealed religion 
 of the highest school of believers ? 
 
 If this young woman of quick intellect 
 had been in the habit of reading her Bible, 
 such a question would not have been possi- 
 ble ; it would, at least, have been ridiculous. 
 Although, strange as it may seem, many 
 Christian Science advocates profess to believe 
 in that Book. 
 
 Have you never had your mind excited, 
 exercised, seemingly filled and absorbed, with 
 some thought, feeling, or interest which ap- 
 parently occupied and possessed it to the ex- 
 clusion of all else, and yet been conscious, 
 when you paused to analyze your mental 
 sensations, that through it all, under it, and 
 interwoven with it, was another theme which 
 the mind had refused to dismiss ? 
 
 And now, for the first time because it 
 was the first time that the two subjects had 
 been arraigned before her as antagonistic
 
 104 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 she was aware that never, during her brief 
 and spirited career as a learner, teacher, and 
 healer, had she failed in intellectual assent to 
 the Christian dogmas. 
 
 As she "pondered these things in her 
 heart," it dawned upon her, with wonderful 
 clearness, what such abandonment, even in 
 theory, might comprehend. It meant good- 
 bye to all hope of personal enjoyment and 
 happiness in that "land that is fairer than 
 day," in which, instinctively, nearly all human 
 creatures, in this enlightened age and Nation of 
 religious liberty, believe. 
 
 Absorbed in the "all good," there would 
 be a loss of independent being, individuality, 
 character, taste, and continued advancement 
 on the line of personal preference and elec- 
 tion. The prospect of final reunion with 
 friends would no longer assuage the woe and 
 misery of the separation brought by death. 
 
 And for what should all this be renounced ? 
 Something which "keeps the promise to the 
 ear, and breaks it to the hope " 
 
 It was, to her fevered and distorted imag- 
 ination, like Victor Hugo's description of the 
 man obliterated by the quicksand, with every- 
 thing before his view which made prolonged 
 existence to be desired.
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 105 
 
 She had sported this new-old doctrine, 
 which she and her fellow-scientists had gone 
 back to six centuries before Christ to resur- 
 rect, as she would have worn a new bonnet ; 
 because, at the first glance, it seemed attract- 
 ive not understanding or in the least ap- 
 preciating its responsibilities. But now, as 
 she sat in her pretty room, with its artistic 
 litter, graceful hangings, fine furniture, and 
 dainty bric-a-brac all of which seemed to 
 mock and jeer at her with their testimony to 
 her very evident belief in the existence of the 
 human body she felt the first accusing mur- 
 murs of a reproving conscience. 
 
 She sat and stared at the little Bible, 
 bound in crimson plush, which lay on the 
 embroidered cloth that covered her table ; but 
 she felt she dared not unclose its clasped 
 pages. 
 
 She had preached "another gospel," and 
 she could still hear the intonation of Fran- 
 cis's voice, as it had sounded when he said 
 "accursed" and "anathema." 
 
 For many days, wherever she went, she 
 could also hear a weak, sick, plaintive little 
 voice, appealing to her : 
 
 "Won't yer wet a rag with cold water, 'n 
 lay it on my forrud ?"
 
 106 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 How had she dared to deny this request 
 and in God's name too ? She, who had never 
 been ill, never burned with fever, never suf- 
 fered the restless pangs and tortures that 
 come with the slow death from incurable dis- 
 ease, had refused to this innocent child cold 
 water, which God gives so freely to all! 
 
 Why do we eat ? Why do we drink ? God 
 can keep us alive without eating and drink- 
 ing, if it be his will, just as he could have 
 cooled the fever in poor little 'Liza's blood 
 by a miracle, when simple, near-at-hand, 
 natural agencies were there to be employed. 
 
 Sadie thought over this phase of the sub- 
 ject not a little. She remembered a number 
 of dinners and luncheons, where she had met 
 some of these Christian Science friends of 
 hers, and recalled, with no little dismay, the 
 remembrance of appetites they had brought 
 to these feasts. 
 
 Her mind reverted in particular to Mrs. 
 Littlefield's decided preference for the second- 
 joint of the turkey, Mrs. Hollister's enjoy- 
 ment of okra, and young Mr. Kridlinger's 
 fondness for a fruit-mosaic at dessert. 
 
 This, in itself, was not strange perhaps, 
 since the world about us has a fixed idea that 
 food is necessary for the nourishment and sus-
 
 HfS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 107 
 
 tenance of life ; but what was singular was 
 the fact that no single one of these adherents 
 to the faith had lifted up his voice in protest 
 to his fellows against pandering to so debas- 
 ing and unworthy an opinion of a stupid 
 world, by lending to it the support of their 
 misleading example 
 
 If, as these people claimed, poison itself 
 could not shorten existence, if it were not for 
 the credence given to its power by a mistaken 
 belief, there being nothing essentially harm- 
 ful inherent in the substance itself; and if 
 medicine, as a healing and remedial agent, 
 owed its status simply to the assent of a de- 
 moralized opinion ; if spirit was the only life, 
 in itself invincible, immortal, a part of Deity, 
 and body only its expression, why, why did 
 they lay such wonderful stress upon some fea- 
 tures of their argument, and say absolutely 
 nothing upon other points quite as tenable? 
 Why invent reasons, make inductions, and 
 draw conclusions without inferring further 
 propositions which, as the day the night, must 
 surely follow? 
 
 But when Sadie had advanced thus far, 
 her head began to whirl, and she felt that 
 "'twere imbecile hewing out roads to a 
 wall."
 
 108 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 In the meantime, Miss Spencer did not go 
 out in the mornings, so often as formerly, to 
 see patients. 
 
 The telephone-bell gave an occasional 
 tinkle, but the conversations seemed brief 
 and pertinent, and Sadie soon "rang off." 
 
 During those days she began to think very 
 seriously of marrying George Langdon, and 
 going away so far away she should never 
 see nor hear of anything or anybody con- 
 nected with the last few months of her life 
 and history. 
 
 She did not discourage him quite so de- 
 terminedly as she had done. She let him 
 waste more or less of her time in the even- 
 ings sometimes in the parlor ; sometimes out 
 under the stars, with Aunt Harriet as dragon 
 near at hand. 
 
 And, to put it plainly, the dear woman felt 
 as dragonish in her disposition to make short 
 work of this knight, as any mediaeval mon- 
 ster with ponderous scales, multiplied coils, 
 and smoking jaws, that gave occasion for the 
 prowess of the chevalier-heroes of the Mid- 
 dle Ages. 
 
 She was a very innocent-looking and well- 
 disguised dragon, and the unconscious young 
 man did not even feel afraid of her, as she
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 109 
 
 rocked placidly to and fro in her creaking 
 chair, dressed in a cool gray muslin, and with 
 her hair, just turning to silver, rolled up with 
 side-combs, in "puffs" upon either side of 
 her head. 
 
 He even felt a mild interest in witnessing 
 the vigorous ardor with which she made oc- 
 casional onslaughts with her fan on depre- 
 dating detachments of the Culex family 
 
 " And routed them, and scouted them, 
 And put them all to flight." 
 
 This fan was composed of a bamboo frame 
 and handle, and was covered with bright red 
 paper, on which was a very fair representa- 
 tion cf Asiatic art, in the form of a . Fran- 
 cis declared it was a "galumphing jabber- 
 wok," but Sadie had written under it: "The 
 lady, or the tiger?" 
 
 He did not know how potent an influence 
 this fan was to wield in the shaping of his 
 destiny.
 
 4 
 
 OR Mrs. Bartlett was "musing," while 
 the fire of George Langdon's passion 
 burned. 
 
 Once or twice she had appealed to her 
 son to know why he did not stay at home 
 more in the evenings, and insinuated that by 
 failure to do so, a rival was causing him to 
 be forgotten and unmissed ; but these appeals 
 fell short of producing the desired effect. 
 
 Once in awhile the two young men met, 
 and exchanged civilities talked of the weather, 
 the last deal in wheat, or some bill that had 
 been introduced in Congress when the law- 
 yer remembered an engagement, consulted his 
 watch, and was off, leaving the coast clear and 
 the field free. 
 
 Aunt Harriet was provoked, and Sadie con- 
 firmed in her belief that "nobody cared what 
 she did, and she didn't either." 
 
 a He is very inoffensive a little too effem- 
 inate to suit Sadie, I should think ; but that 's 
 her business," was the tenor of the lawyer's 
 thoughts, as he strode off in the direction of 
 
 the Hollisters. 
 no
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. Ill 
 
 And here was another fly in Mrs. Bartlett's 
 ointment Flora Hollister 
 
 This young lady was petite and plump, 
 with small hands and feet, a bushy black 
 bang, dark eyes, and clear, dark complexion, 
 and a bird-like way of putting her head on 
 one side to look at you. 
 
 She was one of those girls who appear 
 equally well in almost any role or assumption 
 of character, as all of them seem like the fad 
 of an hour to be soon discarded for -a suc- 
 cessor. But they were all, for the nonce, at- 
 tractive, charming, and for the most part 
 amusing. Being troubled with the possession 
 of no pronounced qualities or proclivities, she 
 was one of the most graciously adaptable be- 
 ings in creation. 
 
 Of almost any two alternatives or extremes, 
 this girl, like the ox on the ancient coin be- 
 tween the plow and the altar, was always 
 "ready for either." 
 
 Nobody quite respects a character like this, 
 but everybody took her at her face vahie, and 
 all allowed themselves to like her for the 
 fifteen minutes that she appeared to be any 
 one thing. She was merry with those who 
 were glad ; but declared to the grief-stricken 
 and sorrowful that she "presumed none of us
 
 112 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 found life very charming," and dropped with 
 them a sympathetic tear. 
 
 For a few weeks past she had been en- 
 gaged in the popular search for "Truth," but 
 when Francis Bartlett came home after his 
 Western trip, she seemed to find him more to 
 her taste than theology new or old. 
 
 She lived not far away, and fell into a 
 habit of dropping in whenever she had reason 
 to suspect the young man would be at home. 
 Sometimes it [was to get a cake recipe, or to 
 find out for her mother how to make a cer- 
 tain kind of pickles, or to share some piquant 
 morsel of gossip which she had just picked up. 
 
 At first she brought her books, to discuss 
 points with Miss Spencer, or to ask questions; 
 but as that young lady, after the episode at 
 the Epperts', staid in her own room a con- 
 siderable portion of the time especially when 
 Francis was about she did not always in- 
 quire for her, nor mount the stairs to seek her 
 society. 
 
 Francis had long ago weighed the attrac- 
 tions of this versatile, chameleon-like crea- 
 ture, and found them decidedly wanting in 
 magnetic power for him ; but, like most young 
 men, sore over the neglect of one girl whom 
 he did care for, he allowed himself to be flat-
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 113 
 
 tered by the evident preference of another for 
 whom he did not. So, when Flora Hollister 
 ran in, wearing her long, lacy-looking, white 
 apron, freshly creased, as if just put on but 
 worn to indicate absorption in domestic af- 
 fairs they laughed and talked of "trifles light 
 as air," until Flora would often forget how 
 time was flying. It would be dusk before 
 she remembered it, and then he would be 
 compelled to walk home with her. 
 
 Sadie often saw these two figures stroll 
 out into the summer twilight together, and 
 would quote mentally, with perhaps a little 
 bitterness: "Cast off their bright skins yearly, 
 like the snake!" 
 
 But all these complications were becoming 
 quite unbearable to Mrs. Bartlett, who deter- 
 mined to try and unravel them. At least, she 
 would give both Sadie and Francis an oppor- 
 tunity to make up their misunderstanding 
 whatever it might be without that rebel, or 
 that brazen girl, hanging about. 
 
 "Frank," said she, one morning 1 , as he was 
 leaving for the office, "can you give us this 
 afternoon? Sadie and I want to go out to 
 Aunt Betsy Glover's, to see about the currants 
 for my jelly. I 'm afraid she 's going to dis- 
 appoint me, and not bring them until it gets
 
 114 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 too late. They say currant-jelly won't jell 
 after the fourth of July." * 
 
 This was the first Miss Spencer had heard 
 about it, but she looked resigned. 
 
 " Perhaps. About what time do you wish 
 to start?" looking at his watch. 
 
 "Well, I must have my after-dinner nap," 
 said Mrs. Bartlett. 
 
 "And I have some sewing to do," said Miss 
 Spencer. 
 
 Sewing! He looked at her more kindly 
 than he had for a week. He fancied it was 
 the good women of the world who sew. 
 
 "How will four o'clock suit you? both of 
 you? I shall be at the court-house until half- 
 past three." 
 
 "Four will suit me admirably," said his 
 mother; and Sadie bowed assent, in answer 
 to his inquiring look in her direction. 
 
 " Get that gentle horse of Raymond's, and 
 one of his double-seated carriages," said his 
 mother. 
 
 "That's likely, ma mere don't you think 
 it is? I would better drive a sheep, and be 
 done with it. Why the animal is n't more 
 than half alive." 
 
 "And the live half is two-thirds paralyzed," 
 said Sadie.
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 115 
 
 He noiselessly clapped his hands together 
 in silent applause. 
 
 "Sadie is like me she likes to feel the 
 wind blow when she drives." 
 
 Mrs. Bartlett followed her son to the gate. 
 
 "One word," said she; "you are always 
 being let in for one thing or another lately, 
 but do n't you, under any provocation, ask that 
 brazen girl to go along." 
 
 "Oho! Sets the wind in that quarter? 
 Well, then, you keep the rebel away." 
 
 "You may strictly rely upon that." 
 
 Sadie had been mysteriously busy in her 
 own room for very many days. She had done 
 comparatively little going out, had been re- 
 fused to most of her callers, and had received 
 bundles, the contents of which she had neither 
 explained nor referred to in her aunt's 
 presence. 
 
 Mrs. Bartlett's curiosity was piqued. ' She 
 had a sincere desire to know what on earth the 
 girl was about. 
 
 In Christian Science circles it was sup- 
 posed that her unusual retirement was due to 
 the fact that her next lecture appointment 
 was not far off, and that she was "studying 
 up," and preparing herself for that momentous 
 occasion.
 
 Il6 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 But Mrs. Bartlett knew better. She was 
 too much of a lady to intrude, uninvited, upon 
 Sadie's privacy ; but, the doors standing open 
 throughout the house, she heard the hum of 
 Sadie's light-running machine, and knew that 
 Esoteric Buddhism had nothing whatever to 
 do with it. 
 
 What could she be doing? 
 
 Caroline Carpenter came every spring and 
 fall, and spent two or three weeks in the con- 
 struction of Sadie's lingerie; and Mrs. Fowler, 
 who now advertised herself as Madame Hen- 
 rietta Jocelyn Fowler, was her dressmaker 
 always charging her a little more for the 
 same grade of work than most of her other 
 customers. 
 
 So Sadie could not be adding to the con- 
 tents of her own wardrobe 
 
 The dear lady sighed over the problem, 
 and was compelled to admit that she could not 
 solve it. 
 
 But after she had wakened from her nap 
 that afternoon, and dressed herself, and rear- 
 ranged the silver-tinged puffs of luxuriant 
 hair, wondering if Frank would be on time, 
 she heard Sadie's voice, calling to her from 
 the head of the stairs : 
 
 "Aunt Harriet!"
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 117 
 
 "What is it, dear?" 
 
 "Please come up, Auntie; I've something 
 to show you. I would have told you about 
 it before, but I was afraid you would want to 
 help me, and I wished to do it all myself." 
 
 Mrs. Bartlett hurried up the stairway with 
 so agile a tread that she had to stop at the 
 landing and catch her panting breath. 
 
 "I'm stouter than you are, my dear," said 
 she, presently. 
 
 " I should hope so ! But even young 
 women do n't run up-stairs now ; they know 
 better." 
 
 "But there's some excuse for me. I'm 
 afflicted, like Bluebeard's wives, with an in- 
 satiable desire to see." 
 
 Sadie motioned her to precede her into the 
 room ; and as she stepped across the thresh- 
 old, she stopped short, and looked around her 
 with a puzzled air. The bed and chairs, at 
 first sight, seemed completely covered with 
 articles of the finest and most dainty under- 
 wear, spread out to display to fullest advan- 
 tage the delicate material, careful workman- 
 ship, and beautiful trimmings employed in 
 their construction. 
 
 As soon as Mrs. Bartlett could concentrate 
 her attention, she discovered, by taking them
 
 Il8 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 up and examining them one by one, that 
 here were one-half dozen cambric night-dresses 
 of softest finish ; some were embellished with 
 lace, and others with ruffles of hemstitched 
 linen lawn, and there were yet others with 
 their Mother Hubbard yokes fashioned from 
 drawn-work, purchased by the yard, and softly 
 edged. But there were no stiff embroidery 
 nor troublesome tucks about any one of them, 
 and they were all too small for Sadie. 
 
 Near these was a little pile of soft, ribbed 
 undervests, so fine they could almost be drawn 
 through a ring. She had been obliged to 
 send away for them ; and through the open 
 scallops at the neck of each she had drawn a 
 narrow ribbon of cream-colored lutestring, and 
 tied it in a double bow. 
 
 Here, at the foot of the bed, with every 
 stitch carefully set, and looking coquettish as 
 to make, but pathetic in size, was a pair of 
 white flannel bed-shoes, bound with pink, 
 satin ribbon, on each of which was a little, 
 flat, pink satin dahlia. 
 
 Next, lay a dozen hemstitched handker- 
 chiefs, with unobtrusive narrow hems, all 
 folded ready for the tiny breast-pockets upon 
 every gown. 
 
 Amid a heap of soft, bright colors, she dis-
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 119 
 
 tinguished two loose, easy-looking, little dress- 
 ing-sacks, of eider-down flannel ; one striped 
 in pink and blue, and the other a soft shade 
 of scarlet. Both of these were tied with rib- 
 bons at the neck. 
 
 On a chair near the bed were a half-dozen 
 sheets not linen, but of finest cotton. Miss 
 Spencer had a prejudice in their favor. Above 
 them were the same number of pairs of 
 pillow-cases, finished with lace. There were 
 a dozen long, white damask towels ; four of them 
 bordered in red above the knotted fringe, 
 four in blue, and four in buff. Four damask 
 B tray-cloths, chain-stitched, in wash-silks, and 
 one dozen napkins of the same quality and of 
 satin softness, lay together. 
 
 Under these was a fleecy, white wool shawl, 
 with a border in shell pattern. 
 
 "Tell me, Aunt Harriet! Have I forgotten 
 anything? Is there everything here that an 
 invalid should have ? See ! Here is her little 
 dressing-case !" 
 
 She lifted the plush cover, and displayed 
 on the dark red lining a square hand-mirror, 
 with twisted, amber-colored handle, and comb 
 and brush to correspond. 
 
 " Whom are all these things for Sadie? Or, 
 do you intend to start a fancy bazar?"
 
 120 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 " O ! Did n't I tell you ? They 're for 'Liza. 
 Poor, little 'Liza Eppert. She 's so patient, 
 and so sick." 
 
 " But will they know what to do with 
 such things, and how to take care of them?" 
 
 "I will teach them what to do, and Mrs. 
 Eppert is a tidy woman ; she will keep them 
 nice. Caroline has been making a little, light, 
 cheese-cloth comfort white, knotted with 
 red ; some curtains, and some pillows, for her 
 little bed. It 's so pretty, aunt ! The pret- 
 tiest little brass bedstead in the catalogue 
 that came with Dean's furniture. He sent for 
 it for me, and the mattress. There 's a min- 
 iature chiffonier, of cherry-wood, with drawers 
 to keep her things in, all by themselves ; and 
 such a pretty little chamber-set so cool-look- 
 ing, and restful white, with a wreath of 
 green leaves around it. Just like the service 
 that goes with her little brass tray. 
 
 Mrs. Bartlett sat down, and drew a long 
 breath of stupefaction and surprise. 
 
 "Does Francis know anything about all 
 this?" 
 
 Sadie threw up her head with a graceful, 
 stag-like air that was very self-assertive. 
 
 "Francis does not need to know it, so far 
 as the money goes. It is my interest money,
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 121 
 
 to do with as I like. And I intend, no mat- 
 ter what anybody says, to see that little 'Laza 
 never wants for anything again, so long as 
 she lives. I told Mr. Dean to furnish a com- 
 fortable, easy rocking-chair, with the other 
 things, so that if she is able at any time to 
 sit up, she can have it to use." 
 
 Mrs. Bartlett made no reply, and Miss 
 Spencer suddenly broke out, saying : 
 
 " Do n't let me ever hear anybody talk 
 slightingly of money. It is wicked ; it is 
 cowardly ! Money is a good gift of God, and 
 sometimes I think that if people who are 
 almost without it, only had a little more of it, 
 they might live better lives. I know they 
 would be happier. It doesn't seem to me 
 that the ' deceitfulness of riches' has half so 
 much to answer for in spoiling people's 
 natures, embittering them, and hardening 
 their hearts, as the intolerable slavery of 
 poverty." 
 
 There was considerable sense of humor 
 in Mrs. Bartlett's composition, and it showed 
 itself at this juncture. I feel confident that 
 what followed did not simply happen. I 
 think she must have been over the ground 
 before, and that she knew her way. She 
 reached over to the table, took up a certain
 
 122 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 one of the books lying there, opened it, and 
 read aloud, as follows : 
 
 "RULES ON SITTING DOWN TO TREAT YOUR- 
 SELF FOR POVERTY. 
 
 "Say to yourself that because my father 
 and mother were poor, it is no sign that I am 
 poor. There is no such thing as heredity. 
 God is rich, and I am an emanation from 
 God ; consequently, what is his is mine, and 
 therefore I can not be poor, for my own will 
 come to me." 
 
 In the midst of this reading, the door shut 
 very vehemently, and Mrs. Bartlett, looking 
 up from the book, found herself the only oc- 
 cupant of the room. 
 
 At this moment Francis drove up, punc- 
 tual to his appointment ; and his mother 
 looked out at the high-mettled team he was 
 holding well in hand, with many misgivings, 
 and the firm conviction that it was frisky as 
 Phaeton's.
 
 ,RS. BARTLETT and "Aunt Betsy" 
 had gone down into the garden to look 
 at the currant-bushes, and Francis and 
 Sadie were left to their own resources. 
 
 "Let us take a little walk," said he, "while 
 they are away." 
 
 Sadie put on the hat she had thrown off 
 for coolness, and signified, in an indifferent 
 way, that she was willing. 
 
 They stepped out on to the roomy, old- 
 fashioned porch, running the entire length of 
 one side of the house, and stepped a mo- 
 ment to see Aunt Betsy's "help" feed the 
 chickens. 
 
 This "help" was like what Francis had 
 sometimes heard his mother (who still retained 
 traces of her Yankee origin) speak of as a 
 "great, gangling creature," in a slat sun-bon- 
 net, and a very skimp calico gown. 
 
 Sadie called the feathered brood that sur- 
 rounded the girl "chickens," although it in- 
 cluded numerous hens and roosters, as well. 
 
 Francis looked at them speculatively, as 
 he and his companion passed down the gravel 
 
 123
 
 124 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 walk, kept within metes and bounds, and pro- 
 tected from the encroachment of vagrant 
 grass-spears by round cobble-stones set closely 
 together, smeared with a plenteous coat of 
 whitewash. 
 
 Even the rounded tops of the boulders, 
 here and there to be seen, raising their rug- 
 ged shoulders out of the lush grass, and which 
 presumably had been where they were now 
 found since some long foregone period, had 
 surrendered their picturesqueness to the in- 
 satiable onslaughts of some artist in lime. 
 
 " I want to ask you a question," said he. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 u Whenever you have heard a rooster crow 
 away, 'way off, on a still spring day did it 
 ever make you feel I hardly know how to 
 describe it sort of queer? Did it put you in 
 mind of something you couldn't remember? 
 Did some part of your nature stir and trem- 
 ble, and" 
 
 She looked up at him with an expression 
 of sympathetic understanding, saying, eagerly: 
 
 "Yes, yes! Has it had that effect on you 
 likewise?" Then, demurely, "Perhaps it's 
 an evidence of re-birth." 
 
 "Or a two-lobed brain. But, seriously, 
 Sadie, it seems to me that some of the most in-
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 125 
 
 spiring sentiments and sensations of the human 
 soul are purveyed to it through the instrumen- 
 tality of sound. What a wonderful God how 
 benevolent, and something more than that, 
 which there is no word of sufficient scope or 
 force to express, to bestow upon man two such 
 senses as those of sight and hearing !" 
 
 " I have noticed the effects of sound you 
 speak of; more especially on Sabbath days, 
 when everything was particularly quiet. Some- 
 times it has brought the tears into my eyes, 
 and, like David, I have longed for wings 
 wings " 
 
 She stopped suddenly, blushing, and half 
 laughing. 
 
 "It is an evidence that, under all your out- 
 ward mistakes your soul's aspirations are mak- 
 ing themselves felt. There are people who, 
 because they see professors of the Christian 
 religion enjoying life and appreciating its good 
 things, think that they are well enough satis- 
 fied with ' the life that now is ' without having 
 any yearning desire for a better one to come. 
 I think, though, there was never a truer thing 
 written, nor expressed in more exquisite lan- 
 guage, than that of Bishop Foster in his book 
 'Beyond the Grave.' It struck me so forcibly 
 that I committed it to memory. He says if
 
 126 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 the soul of man has always to live here, ' the 
 earth, that was once so great, will become too 
 narrow for it, and too gross. Beauties will 
 come, and muster before its interior eye, that 
 will make all earthly beauty fade; the glory 
 of sun, moon, and stars dwindle before the 
 greater glory of unseen heavens ; music will 
 ravish its inward ear, that will make all the 
 grosser sounds of earthly harmonies discords ; 
 loves will draw it deeper than all earthly sym- 
 pathies; it will become an exile, a captive, 
 pining for deliverance; earth will no longer be 
 a home for it; it will account itself a stranger 
 and a pilgrim. Its gaze will be turned upward, 
 not to the heavens of suns and stars, but to the 
 greater heaven, where dwell other powers and 
 potentates the infinite empyrean of truth and 
 love, and spiritual thrones, and dominions.' 
 Yes ; when our souls speak, their cry is for 
 ' wings, wings.' " 
 
 Sadie was silent. This was a phase of 
 Francis's nature she had never seen before. 
 
 He spoke again, shortly. " Life is so brief," 
 he said, "and so uncertain. No time for wan- 
 dering in 'by and forbidden paths,' from which 
 we must come back at length, foot-sore, dis- 
 heartened, and weary, to the only Way. Think 
 it all over, Sadie, and be sure of your ground."
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 127 
 
 She did not reply to this; but as the sun 
 flashed in her eyes, she stopped, saying : 
 
 "Dear me! I must go back for my par- 
 asol!" 
 
 "No, no! Wait a minute, and I will fetch 
 it." 
 
 But Mr. Bartlett was gone more than a 
 minute, and when he returned he did not have 
 the parasol. 
 
 "It isn't to be found. Take this; you can 
 use it as a screen," said he, handing her his 
 mother's red fan. 
 
 She took it with an expression of counte- 
 nance, which, as "iron sharpeneth iron," struck 
 a mischievous sparkle from his eyes, and they 
 laughed in unison. All gravity instantly van- 
 ished. "Do you suppose Aunt Betsy will in- 
 vite us to stay to supper?" asked he, whim- 
 sically, swinging open the gate which gave 
 access to a narrow strip of ground which 
 flanked a country lane. 
 
 "Well, now, do you know, I don't know? 
 I saw a frying-pan heating on the stove when 
 we passed the kitchen door." 
 
 "Perhaps they're going to 'hot-pot' us." 
 
 Sadie rolled her eyes with a dolorous look, 
 and again they laughed. 
 
 O, innocent, idle talk and laughter! How
 
 128 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 soothing, how comforting ye are! How many 
 a rough place in life's journey have ye smoothed 
 for foot-sore humanity, by bringing temporary 
 forgetfulness of self, and self s trials and bur- 
 dens, while self laughed by the way ! 
 
 How many an incipient wrinkle have ye 
 banished, ere it etched its remorseless line 
 upon the troubled brow, to "go no more out 
 forever " till it crumble into dust ! And de- 
 spite all assertions to the contrary, which 
 some long-faced disciplinarians of the world, 
 who feel that they must render personal ac- 
 count for its piety and its morals, may make, 
 such can not be the "idle words" for which 
 God shall call man into judgment. Sweet air 
 of June! How inspiring, how delicious, how 
 tender ! How delicate and fragrant with the 
 scent of the fields, the strawberry, and the 
 rose ! How like a poem to live in June, and 
 be near to nature's heart ! Robert Browning 
 wrote verse, in which he said we have 
 
 "Never the time and place 
 And the loved one all together ;" 
 
 but here was Francis, in this decline of an 
 exquisite June day, strolling along through a 
 bit of Arcadian landscape, with Sadie by his 
 side not in her grenadier dress, not as high 
 priestess of some repulsive faith, not as any-
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 129 
 
 thing that disturbed or troubled only as a 
 gentle and tender-hearted woman, whose 
 sweet, becoming seriousness of- a few mo- 
 ments past was crested with a sparkle of that 
 humorous mirth which skirts the border-land 
 of tears. 
 
 She wore a straight, flimsy gown, cream- 
 tinted, with here and there, far apart, cool- 
 looking discs of palest green. There was 
 olive velvet at the throat and wrists, and 
 silver clasps at the waist-line confined the 
 soft folds of the silken vest. Her yellowish 
 hat, bent in aesthetic curves, was circled with 
 a wreath. Now, there are wreaths and 
 wreaths. This was no riotous overflow of 
 "roses that had never been in bud," nor yet 
 of Levantine poppies. If this wreath was of 
 flowers, it was of flowers so tender in their 
 tint they had not lost the greenness of the 
 leaf; and if of leaves, they were potential 
 things that might develop into flowers. 
 
 Francis may be excused for indulging the 
 pretty fancy that she seemed like spring come 
 bacfc to walk with him in summer-time. 
 
 " Will you think me too extravagant if I 
 tell you something?" asked she. She had 
 so soon forgotten that he did " not need to 
 know."
 
 130 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 "No," said he; "I never thought you ex- 
 travagant except in one particular." 
 
 She did not ask him what that one partic- 
 ular might be. Every insect hopping in the 
 grass and every winged thing flying in the 
 air seemed shrilly shouting out to her, "Hello! 
 Hello !" 
 
 Then she began and told him, stammer- 
 ingly, about what she had been doing for 
 'Liza, gathering courage as she saw the ap- 
 proving look that lit his face as she con- 
 tinued. 
 
 " This is the loveliest thing you ever did," 
 said he ; and then they fell to work arranging 
 the ways and means for delivering the gifts. 
 
 "We will go down to-morrow afternoon, 
 about the time that we started to-day. I will 
 speak to Dean to send his load, so it will ar- 
 rive shortly after we do. Men are always at 
 a disadvantage in such matters. They can 't 
 sew as women do, and raw material is n't 
 half so acceptable or nice. Hello, there are 
 some ox-eye daisies ! The prettiest ones I 
 have seen this summer. Wait a minute, and 
 I '11 get you some." 
 
 They had strayed as they exchanged their 
 serious talk and light badinage, and while 
 Sadie rehearsed her secret concerning 'Liza,
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 131 
 
 to some little distance from the house which 
 they had left. The daisies were in an uncul- 
 tivated field, separated from the lane by a rail 
 fence, which Mr. Bartlett went over with much 
 athletic grace. He wandered in among a 
 tangle of wild flowers, breaking off first one 
 and then another, and abandoning them for 
 prettier ones ahead of him (they always look 
 prettier just ahead), until he had gone some 
 distance into the wild inclosure thus over- 
 grown. 
 
 Sadie looked after him for a moment, and 
 then turned her eyes on the features of the 
 scenery about her, shading them from the sun, 
 low down in the west, yet still sending back 
 his javelins of fire, with Aunt Harriet's red 
 fan. How beautiful the world of nature was! 
 How bountifully, through sound and vision, 
 did it minister to man ! 
 
 A sharp reproach pierced her with the 
 thought that her presumptuous philosophy 
 had denied its grandeur, and ignored the debt 
 owed to these ministrations by man's spiritual 
 life. Why, even now the play of leaves in 
 the soft wind, the greenness of the grass be- 
 neath her feet, the aroma of flowers, scent of 
 vines, and chirp of insect life about her, made, 
 as Francis had said, "some part of her nature
 
 132 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 thrill and tremble." Ah ! how it thrilled and 
 trembled its higher, better part, in which 
 the mind and the emotions mingle and reach 
 out, not to impossible ideals, but actual goods 
 and graces, that, as souls expand, wear all the 
 beauties of the ideal, with the added charms 
 of truth, permanence, and immortality! And 
 it was at this moment, when the delicate 
 mechanism of her nature was responding, in a 
 sweet, indefinable tumult, to these appeals from 
 without, that there arose within her a strong, 
 unconquerable repugnance to a marriage with 
 George Langdon. Sadie had been at church 
 on Sabbath strange inconsistency ! and she 
 remembered now how the minister had spoken 
 of God as him u who desireth truth in the in- 
 ward parts." Surely, then, he wculd con- 
 demn falsehood in the act. It came to her 
 consciousness for the first time that such an 
 act would carry with it a responsibility graver 
 than even the wreck of her own life and 
 George Langdon's ; it would involve the 
 basest of falsehood and perjury. 
 
 What had seemed to her up to this time 
 only as a haven of rest, a way out of troubles 
 and entanglements, an escape and refuge from 
 her own audacious mistakes, now loomed be- 
 fore her as a danger to be avoided, an evil to
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 133 
 
 be sh tinned something to flee from, as from 
 pestilence and death. 
 
 Some ward had turned in the lock of her 
 heart, some door had slightly stirred upon its 
 hitherto moveless hinges. She had caught 
 one glimpse of her own possible powers of 
 feeling ;. and as she stood thus, shading her 
 eyes and looking, with a half smile, steadily 
 before her, the fate of this luckless young 
 man, in so far as it was in any wise connected 
 with hopes concerning her, was sealed. 
 
 Just at the corner of this weed-grown lot 
 wherein Francis was gathering an ambitious 
 bouquet like the gaudy pretensions, alas ! of 
 a large class of human beings, and as strong 
 a tendency toward early wilting another little 
 lane or foot-path intersected with this broader 
 one in which Miss Spencer was standing. 
 
 Two or three cows came leisurely around 
 this corner, and strolled up the incline in her 
 direction. At the first sight of her, the lead- 
 ing cow stopped suddenly, and took a more 
 prolonged view. This action the second one 
 imitated; and the third also came to a halt 
 of indecision. This pantomime was termi- 
 nated by a bolt of the rear animal, which 
 urged the entire trio past her in a sort of or- 
 ganic whirlwind.
 
 134 H IS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 Miss Spencer was afraid of cows. Her 
 heart made a sudden leap into her throat. 
 As she looked after them, thankful that they 
 had " stood not upon the order of their going, 
 but gone at once," she did not at the moment 
 notice that a short-horn bull, closely followed 
 by a man on horseback, with a longfc heavy 
 black whip in his hand, had also turned the 
 bend immediately in their rear. The first in- 
 timation she had of this was the sound of a 
 snorting and bellowing close at hand. She 
 turned her head just in time to see the an- 
 imal pause and lower his own, as if about to 
 make an attack upon her. 
 
 At this moment she heard Francis's foot- 
 steps running across the field behind her, and 
 a peremptory voice cried out, "Throw down 
 that fan!" 
 
 This order was unnecessary. Had her im- 
 mortal soul been at stake, she could not have 
 moved. In the meantime the man on horse- 
 back made a quick strategic movement, put- 
 ting himself and horse between her and the 
 bull, and added, as a convincing clause of pro- 
 hibitory nature, a resonant swing of the lash 
 across his flank. Borne by the urgency of 
 both horse and whip entirely beyond the ob- 
 ject of his momentary rage, the fury of Taurus
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 135 
 
 took new direction, and, still bellowing, he 
 rushed on to overtake the departed cows. 
 
 Francis vaulted over the fence. He looked 
 whiter than the frightened girl before him. 
 
 "Hi, there ! You !" called he to the disrep- 
 utable-looking hero of the whip. 
 
 The hero pulled up, with a "Wha' d' ye 
 want?" 
 
 "Are those John Carey's cattle?" 
 
 "Ya-as." 
 
 " Is that the bull that killed Jock Rollins's 
 blooded colt yesterday?" 
 
 " The very critter. He 's a tough un, 
 he is." 
 
 " Well, his owner will have a tough price 
 to pay for that colt, too. If that brute had 
 come an inch nearer this young lady, I 'd 
 have made this part of the world too hot to 
 hold John Carey , and you can tell him that 
 from me. You call at my office at nine o'clock 
 to-morrow morning Francis Bartlett's, Main 
 Street, in town, and get some money." 
 
 The man grinned, and remarking that he 
 " could bet his bottom dollar on that," spurred 
 on his horse to catch up with his responsible 
 charge. After ruminating over the affair for a 
 few moments, he ejected a stream of tobacco- 
 juice from his filthy mouth, and concluded
 
 136 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR, 
 
 his cogitations with, " I reckon he 's fond o' 
 that gal." 
 
 Francis drew a long breath, and turned to 
 Sadie. She was trembling like the leaves of 
 a " quaking asp" tree when the lightest breath 
 of air sets them in motion on their slender 
 petioles. He took her hand in his own, which 
 was cold. He tried to speak lightly: 
 
 " He was charging the Jabberwok." 
 
 Her answering smile was very faint. He 
 must use heroic treatment, that was very ev- 
 ident. 
 
 " By way of an idea," said he, nodding his 
 head in the direction of the cause of her 
 fright, "he is a very robust specimen But 
 why did you not remember Mrs. Eddy's dec- 
 laration that ' our bodies are where we think 
 them,' and that our psychical influence can 
 render them invulnerable? Follow me for a 
 moment, Sadie. The animal is only an idea ; 
 ergo, he is not here. You are where you 
 think yourself; so, think yourself somewhere 
 else and you are not here. But, even at the 
 worst, if the bull and you are both here, why 
 you have only to exercise the influence of the 
 psychical part of you over the part expressing 
 the divine and human idea of you, and, presto! 
 here you are, more invulnerable than Achilles."
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 137 
 
 She raised her head proudly, and the color 
 came back into her cheek. 
 
 " You should not waste such brilliant pro- 
 fessional work outside the court-house," said 
 she, sarcastically 
 
 " O well, 1 ' thought he, half mockingly, 
 "when a woman gets to running after a will- 
 o'-the-wisp like this, there is no getting on 
 with her ten minutes at a time without a col- 
 lision. I wish that brute had been in Jer- 
 icho !" 
 
 So, together, scarcely speaking, they turned 
 back and retraced the steps they had taken 
 with joy and laughter in the soft June twi- 
 light. 
 
 12
 
 xcUgFTER reaching home, Miss Spencer 
 
 (5~7S went directly to her own room. She 
 
 e, waited for no deliberation, the counsel 
 
 w 
 
 ' of no sober second thought, which often 
 nullifies the hasty resolution. She went im- 
 mediately to her writing-desk, and, sitting 
 down, wrote the answer for which George 
 Langdon had been waiting for a week. Not 
 exactly the answer he had been expecting, or 
 which she had thought to give ; but she drew 
 a long breath of utter and exquisite relief 
 when its direct, unequivocal meaning had 
 made itself clear upon paper She hurried 
 out secretly, and posted it herself, and went 
 back to the house again, without her absence 
 having been noticed. 
 
 ' I suppose I have done wrong with regard 
 to him," muttered she ; ' but if so, it is of a 
 piece with all the rest of my follies and mis- 
 takes, and I can repent them all together." 
 
 But for all that, Sadie's sleep was broken 
 that night by a knowledge of the pain she 
 was giving to a man who, if she did not love 
 him, she knew loved her very truly. 
 138
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 139 
 
 By the time she and Francis Bartlett were 
 on their way to see little 'Liza the next day, 
 with Caroline's comfort and pillows and Sadie's 
 lingerie in the carriage, and with the load of 
 furnishing goods a little way behind them, 
 George Langdon had left the town, disap- 
 pointed and sore at heart, but excusing her 
 wherein she most blamed herself for ever 
 having encouraged his hopes. 
 
 He knew that his persistence alone had 
 won this encouragement, such as it was. 
 
 Francis saw that she was pensive, and that 
 a shadow lay upon her spirits. He knew of 
 Langdon's departure, but he was not aware 
 of what had brought it about ; so to that he 
 attributed this shade of sadness, which, para- 
 doxically speaking, was truth, yet not the 
 truth. 
 
 He wondered in his perplexity what the 
 tie between them might be, which caused her 
 to be sad at his going, when a word from 
 her would without doubt have caused him to 
 remain. 
 
 Upon their arrival at the Epperts', they 
 were met by Josiah, who was, as on the for- 
 mer occasion, sitting at the open door, with 
 every evidence of obsequious delight. 
 
 In all Josiah's life and knowledge of
 
 140 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 human beings, he had never before met a man 
 who, knowing him for what he was and hav- 
 ing no illusions that he was "worthy," had, 
 out of pure Christian charity arid generic love 
 of his kind, extended to him so hearty and 
 earnest a helping hand, without sermon or 
 tract or pledge in it just letting its deeds 
 speak in their own eloquent way. 
 
 And they had spoken. For even a man 
 who occasionally steals .chickens and habit- 
 ually drinks whisky, may have a conscience, 
 after all, if he will but stop stealing and 
 drinking long enough to let it be heard. 
 
 Josiah had stopped, perforce. Physical 
 disability had debarred him from the one pur- 
 suit, and pecuniary embarrassment had mate- 
 rially lessened his facilities for following the 
 other; and in this interval of comparative 
 decency, the man had often thought to him- 
 self that it might be a good thing for him to 
 abandon both. 
 
 Some people may object, that repentance 
 of this sort can not be genuine ; but I be- 
 lieve, as a general rule, it has to be made hard 
 for mankind to do wrong, before they do right 
 from choice. 
 
 Even David, who was a man "after God's 
 own heart," declares: "Before I was afflicted,
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 141 
 
 I went astray ; but now have I kept thy 
 word." 
 
 Afflictions, both of body ani spirit, we 
 know, have a bracing, tonic effect upon the 
 character, like a draught from a quassia-cup. 
 They are irritative stimuknts to the better 
 qualities of the nature ; but, like quinine, they 
 are bitter to take. 
 
 "I 'low'd we wasn't goin' ter see you out 
 yere no more," said he, rising up with a vigor 
 that surprised his visitors, in view of his re- 
 cent incapacity to make use of his limbs, 
 and hobbling on his stick to the carriage. 
 
 "Why, Joe, you're improving!" said the 
 young lawyer. 
 
 " Improvin' ! Well, now ye 're shoutin' ! 
 Ef I ain't, I sh'd like ter know who is. Hitch 
 yer hawse ter that tree, sir, and help the 
 young 'ooman out. It 's astonishin', now, 
 how much better doctor old Butterworth is, 
 when he 's pintedly sure of gittin' what 's 
 comin' to him. Do n't have ter fool no time 
 away askin' who 's responsible this time. 
 That 's jest it. He 's a-makin' the rheumatiz 
 git up an' git. Hope I see you well, Miss? 
 Yes, the old 'ooman 's fair ter middlin' ; an' 
 'Liza why 'Liza 's pearter 'n I 've seen 'er 
 sence she got down in bed. Don't hafter
 
 142 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 set up 'n cough like she use' ter in the night. 
 Biitterworth gives her somethiu' that eases 
 her up consid'able. But there 's the old 
 'ooman a-waitin' in the door. Walk right 
 in. You need n't aige a-past this time. 
 He! he! he!" 
 
 Francis looked at Sadie at the mention of 
 the doctor, but she seemed perfectly oblivious, 
 as she reached into the carriage for parcels 
 with which to load him down. 
 
 Mrs. Eppert met them r.t the door, appar- 
 ently in doubt what course to pursue, or what 
 would be said and done by the young lady, 
 when she discovered that 'Liza had been 
 given over by her father and Mr. Bartlett to 
 a doctor's care one of those invidious crea- 
 tures supposed by Christian Scientists to go 
 up and down and around and about, seeking 
 whom they may devour. 
 
 Not that this was the form of her thought, 
 only its gist. 
 
 But Sadie met her easily and pleasantly, 
 and passed at once into 'Liza's room, to which 
 she afterward admitted Mr. Bartlett, bringing 
 the things made for the child's use. 
 
 "I 'm right glad ter see ye both of ye. 
 I like ye both of ye! Marm said 't mebbe 
 ye wouldn't come back no more, but I
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 143 
 
 knowed better; 'cause ye said ye would, an' 
 ye did." 
 
 This was little 'Liza's greeting, as she put 
 out her attenuated hands to them, and smiled 
 a sweet, pathetic smile, that emphasized the 
 hollows in her cheeks, and seemed to accent- 
 uate the shadows of the deep purple rings 
 under her eyes. 
 
 "I am glad you believe in us, dear, and I 
 have brought you something in answer to your 
 faith in me. Guess what it is." 
 
 " I wan' ter tell ye sumpin first, afore you 
 give me anything. I do n't want ter act no 
 wrong story. I 'm takin' doctor's stuff ev'ry 
 day three 'n four times a day. An' ev'ry 
 three 'n four days, he comes ter see me his- 
 self, an' puts some kind er glass thing under 
 my tongue, an' takes out his watch when he 
 feels my wrist, an' asks me lots er questions 
 'bout how I feel. An' I ain't goin' ter tell 
 yer nothin' but the truth I feel heaps better! 
 You ain't mad at me, are ye? 'Cause it's orful 
 when you feel like I use' ter, 'n ye hain't got 
 nothin' to take." 
 
 Sadie stooped down and kissed her, with 
 tears in her eyes. 
 
 "No, child, I'm not angry with you. I'm 
 glad you are feeling so much better. Shall
 
 144 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 we turn the gentleman out, while I show you 
 what 1 have brought?" 
 
 The child looked from one conscious face 
 to the other. 
 
 "If you '11 let him in ergin." 
 
 " O, he shall come in. Now, Mr. Bartlett, 
 we will call you when you are wanted. Con- 
 sider yourself dismissed." 
 
 The young man, smiling, retired from the 
 room. 
 
 In about a minute afterward, they heard a 
 shrill cry of delight from 'Liza. 
 
 " O, pap ! marni ! childern! Come quick! 
 O, come quick !" 
 
 In a minute more they were inside the 
 room, the "childern" being represented by 
 the six-year-old, still known to his fond 
 mother as " Baby." The others had shaken 
 his society and played hookey. 
 
 'Liza was sitting up in bed, with her arms 
 full of dainty garments, and the remainder of 
 them scattered on the foot of the bed and 
 about the room. 
 
 "Ain't they pretty, marm? Aint they, 
 pap? An' she giv' 'em all ev'ry one of 'em 
 to me. I think she 's a' nangel. Nobody 
 never done nothin' like this ter me afore ; an' 
 she would n't if she warn't a' nangel."
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 145 
 
 Josiah acted as if he was stricken dumb ; 
 but then, as Francis told Sadie afterward, 
 "Joe always was a little dumb." 
 
 Mrs. Eppert came nearer to concentrating 
 her gaze than the visitors had ever before 
 seen her ; and then she turned it from the 
 gifts to the giver, with the remark : 
 
 " Well, if this ain't the beatin'est thing I 
 ever seen !" 
 
 " Baby " stood with mouth and eyes wide 
 open, until it occurred to him that he had not 
 been remembered, and the howling which en- 
 sued could only be quieted by some loose 
 change from the gentleman's pocket. 
 
 Just then there was a knock with a whip- 
 handle on the outside door of the house. Jo- 
 siah hobbled out to receive the unexpected 
 guest, and immediately called out: 
 
 " Polly ! Polly ! Come yere ! There must 
 be a mistake of some kind. It must be Christ- 
 mas. Here 's old Santy, by gum ! loaded 
 plum down." 
 
 Polly made quick time in response to this 
 call ; and there was heard floating backward, 
 in accents of increasing astonishment, the re- 
 frain that " this was the beatin'est thing she 
 ever seen." 
 
 Sadie smiled and motioned Francis away. 
 13
 
 146 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 Then she shut and fastened the door with the 
 old-fashioned hasp upon it, and proceeded to 
 make the little girl's scanty sick toilet. But, 
 first of all, she asked her: 
 
 " 'Liza, have you forgiven me for not wet- 
 ting that cloth and putting it on your head ?" 
 
 " Forgive you ? Why, I 'low you do n't 
 never need nobody to forgive you. You 're 
 good as Sunday-school teacher, and a 'miff 
 sight prettier. 'N' I like pretty things ; an' I 
 like you." 
 
 The child held her breath in an awe- 
 stricken way, as the ribbon in the little vest 
 was tied about her shoulders, and the soft 
 cambric gown, with its Valenciennes ruffles, 
 was placed over it. But her admiration could 
 not be restrained when the little, white bed- 
 shoes, with the pink dahlia rosettes, were put 
 upon her feet. 
 
 "Why, that's like Cind'rella. I heerd 
 about her an' her fairy godmother. Them 
 Burnett children to the Aldershotts', las' sum- 
 mer, had a book about her. Ain't you my 
 godmother ? You told me God 'n' good meant 
 all the same, an' I know ye 're good. But I 
 do n't want the clock ter strike twelve this 
 time. I want this ter stay certain true. Will 
 the clock strike ?"
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 147 
 
 As the child asked this, she looked up anx- 
 iously into the fairy godmother's face. 
 
 " I do n't want it all ter turn ter rags 7 n 
 lose my slippers." 
 
 " Yes, 'Liza, the clock will strike some 
 day ; it will strike twelve for you ; but your 
 pretty things won't ' all turn to rags.' You 
 will wear more beautiful garments then, white 
 as snow, and a crown that will glitter like the 
 stars ; and you will be with Jesus when the 
 clock strikes twelve." 
 
 'Liza smiled. " I do n't mind that. I like 
 Him." 
 
 Then Sadie rolled the little girl in the 
 counterpane, and unfastened the door. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Bartlett, I am coming out to 
 sit in the rocking-chair, and you shall bring 
 'Liza and put her in my arms," called she. 
 
 After she had established herself in the 
 chair, and 'Liza had been put upon her lap, 
 the child said : 
 
 " I do n't b'leeve I can set up. Why do n't 
 I stay in bed?" 
 
 " Lean your head down against my shoulder, 
 and I will rock you ; and I am going to tie this 
 handkerchief over your eyes for a little while. 
 Then we will see what we shall find when you 
 open them."
 
 148 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 'Liza submitted obediently. Sadie could 
 see that the excitement had wearied her, and 
 she was almost ready to go to sleep. So she 
 was glad, after a little tramping in and out of 
 feet that wore heavy boots, and belonged to 
 Mr. Dean's delivery man, to take off the blind- 
 folding handkerchief, and give the child to 
 Francis to carry back into the bedroom. 
 
 Poor 'Liza ! The little brass bedstead and 
 beautiful bed, and the entire arrangement of 
 the hitherto plain, bare little room was too 
 much for her. When she was put down on 
 the snowy pillows, her excitement overmas- 
 tered her, and she began to cry. 
 
 " Sho, now, do n't ! I would n't, now, 'Lizy, 
 ef I was you," said Josiah, drawing the back 
 of his yellow hand across his eyes. And 
 Polly's eyes were so moist that it took several 
 rods off the distance of their glance. 
 
 "She can 't help it, Josiah," said she; "it 's 
 so beatin'; and it seems like 'twas so." 
 
 "Well, Polly, if these yere senses is lyin' 
 this time, I b'leeve I like lies. Do n't give me 
 no sort of truth if this yere is lies." 
 
 But while 'Liza was sobbing, Francis had 
 gone out suddenly, and returned with some- 
 thing in his arms, which he put into hers, and 
 closed them over it.
 
 HfS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 149 
 
 "Are you too big a girl for that?" asked he. 
 
 She took her face out of the pillow, and 
 looked. 
 
 "O! O!! O!!!" cried she, in a crescendo of 
 ecstasy. 
 
 It was a large wax doll, with hair that 
 curled, clothes that would take off, beautiful 
 yellow-glass ear-rings in its ears, and O, won- 
 der of wonders! Francis showed her how to 
 pull a wire and make it say "Mamma," and 
 "Papa." 
 
 The tears were all dried now; but Sadie 
 banished all the people from the room, and 
 shut out the light with the new green curtains. 
 
 Then she looked at the bottle by the bed- 
 side, and found out, by the label and by ques- 
 tioning, that it was time for another dose, 
 which she promptly, with a determined and 
 seemingly satisfactory air, administered. 
 
 And soon the child was sound asleep, with 
 the precious doll clasped tightly to her bosom. 
 
 Miss Spencer went out, and softly closed 
 the door. 
 
 Everybody can not do things upon so 
 agreeable a scale as it had pleased these 
 friends of ours to do for 'Liza; but how much 
 might be accomplished in this world to amel- 
 iorate the condition of the poor, the sick, and
 
 150 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 the sorrowful, if people had in them more of 
 that spirit which leads to a desire to do what 
 they are able to effect, be it little or much ! 
 Which of us remembers that "the field is the 
 world," and "the reapers are the angels;" 
 that we pass this way but once, and must 
 sow as we journey, if aught of ours is to be 
 gathered when they "put in the sickle and 
 reap?'*
 
 XII- 
 
 JlSS SPENCER and Mr. Bartlett were 
 making ready to leave, when a spring- 
 wagon was drawn up in front of the 
 house, convoyed by a very restless roan 
 steed, which objected to stopping. Its driver 
 persuaded it, however, by vigorous cries of 
 "Whoa, there!" "What 're you about, now?" 
 "Stand still, I tell you!" and various other 
 admonitions of like nature, while a stout lady 
 climbed out backwards, with considerable 
 display of pudgy ankles in white stockings 
 above old-fashioned Congress gaiters. 
 
 Sadie flushed a little as she looked at her, 
 and said, in a low tone, to Francis: 
 
 "I wish we had gotten away." 
 
 "I don't know," was the equally low re- 
 ply. " I think Joe may need me to undertake 
 his defense. I 've done it under circumstances 
 less to his credit, I must say." 
 
 No comment was made upon this remark, 
 and both of them watched the new-comer, 
 as, having gotten safely on terra firma, she 
 walked heavily and laboriously into the house, 
 while her companion drove away.
 
 152 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 The lady's face was ruddy with the heat, 
 and her superfluous weight, as she climbed 
 from the step of the high-bodied wagon, 
 seemed to have inconvenienced and overex- 
 erted her. 
 
 Joe did not arise to welcome her, as was 
 his custom with visitors more anxiously de- 
 sired. He waited for Polly, and even Polly's 
 motion was a little reluctant. To use the 
 language of the thought in her mind " Here 
 was a pretty kittle of fish!" 
 
 But even Polly, it appeared, had not the 
 slightest idea of being browbeaten, or sat 
 upon, under her own vine and fig-tree. Her 
 glance went very wide of the mark, and her 
 manner was quite as distant. 
 
 "Why, how d'ye do, Mis's Morris?" said 
 she, setting that lady a chair, with very indif- 
 ferent courtesy. 
 
 Mrs. Morris felt the change in the atmos- 
 phere, and looked about for the cause ; but 
 seemed reassured when her eye rested upon 
 Miss Spencer, whom she rushed forward to 
 and kissed with much empressment. 
 
 " Well, now, it 's good to see you here. 
 You 've been keeping your promise to me, I 
 know." Then, to Mrs. Eppert: "I know 
 'Liza feels better. I 've been giving her close
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 153 
 
 attention all the while I was away. But I 
 am glad to see that Miss Spencer has been a 
 present help to you. Entertaining is one of 
 the best forms of healing. It gives the mind 
 something pleasant to think about. Dear 
 'Liza! What a privilege she has enjoyed in 
 having so earnest and enthusiastic a healer 
 with her! And you, Miss Spencer I know 
 you have enjoyed watching that 'refining pro- 
 cess by which the body becomes the blended 
 possession of the soul, and every seeming 
 organ of the body is gradually being dove- 
 tailed into its perfect thought' " 
 
 A red spot came out upon Sadie's cheeks ; 
 but she did not reply to this rhodomontade, 
 except to ask the speaker when she had re- 
 turned. 
 
 Was it possible she had talked such stuff 
 as this herself, and considered it intelligent? 
 How many days had it been since she had, in 
 sheer desperation, and before Francis too, 
 talked of holding Joe Joe! "to his right of 
 soul-growth?" And what had, since then, 
 caused her to see the absurdity of it with such 
 overwhelming distinctness? 
 
 "Why, if I am not mistaken^ this is Mr. 
 Bartlett?" remarked Mrs. Morris, rising, and 
 holding out her hand to the young man.
 
 154 *HS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 "Excuse my short-sightedness. I left my 
 glasses in my other dress-pocket." 
 
 Mr. Bartlett signified his willingness to 
 excuse it, and Mrs. Morris, with much seem- 
 ing satisfaction, sat down again. 
 
 She was a woman with a very straight 
 back and a full, high bust, which gave her, 
 as she sat, the appearance of a stuffed owl on 
 a perch. 
 
 She wore a hot-looking, somewhat frayed, 
 and shiny, black gros-grain silk, mustard- 
 colored cotton gloves, and a bonnet of such 
 old-fashioned, flaring amplitude that it testi- 
 fied to more years on the part of i's wearer 
 than the record in the family Bible. 
 
 After Mrs. Morris had seated herself, there 
 ensued a few moments of frosty silence, which 
 she broke by asking to see 'Liza. No one 
 answered for a half-minute, after which Josiah 
 cleared his throat, and blurted out the fact 
 that " Butterworth was a-tendin' 'Lizy." 
 
 This information, for a brief period, seemed 
 to take away Mrs. Morris's breath ; but, re- 
 gaining it, she turned on Mrs. Eppert, 
 saying : 
 
 "I am surprised at you!" 
 
 Mrs. Eppert proved herself equal to the 
 occasion.
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 155 
 
 " You do n't have no call to be. I reckon 
 Josiah has a right ter do what he pleases 
 erbout his own young 'uns. Not but what 
 'Liza 's the same 's my own flesh an' blood. 
 I b'leeve in Chrischen healin' by them as can 
 heal ; but 'Liza was n't gettin' no better, an' 
 this gentleman present is footin' the expenses 
 for Butterworth." 
 
 " But, my dear woman, it is so debasing 
 this pandering to a belief in evil and sickness 
 and death, this lowering the standard of spir- 
 itual growth and development. The increase 
 in the number of physicians is absolutely 
 startling, and it is all owing to the cultivation 
 of the idea that this seeming body, which 
 is the lowest grade of existence, is the real 
 ego" 
 
 "Indeed!" said Mr. Bartlett, in an inter- 
 ested manner, literally taking the lady off 
 Mrs. Eppert's hands. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; it is so. No wonder the pul- 
 pits teach that man was made out of the dust 
 of the earth, when our groveling ideas insist 
 so strenuously upon holding him to this earth 
 level." 
 
 "What would you suggest?" asked he 
 suavely. 
 
 "Why, I would have him arise shine."
 
 156 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 "All!" 
 
 " I want him to give up his belief in sin, 
 evil, and death." 
 
 " Then you do n't believe in death ?" 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " Is your husband living?" 
 
 " Not not in this sphere, sir. But noth- 
 ing is lost to life when this animal organism 
 decays." 
 
 " Supposing, now, that we do not quarrel 
 as to terms, but come to an understanding on 
 some neutral ground. You think 'Liza can 
 not die, unless she lets herself, or those around 
 her let themselves, believe in such a possi- 
 bility." 
 
 " Certainly I think so. Of course." 
 
 " It is true that nothing essential to the 
 spirit's existence ' is lost to life ' when the 
 body dies ; but it is 'Liza's body, and not her 
 spirit, that we are trying to preserve as long 
 as possible by the use of medicines." 
 
 " But my dear sir, medicines are not ad- 
 equate." 
 
 "Is entertaining?" 
 
 " It is very useful." 
 
 " But, it did not seem to be particularly 
 useful in this case. Under your method, first 
 of entertaining and then of absent treatment,
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR, 157 
 
 so called, 'Liza grew worse every day. Her: 
 fever was higher, her cough more distressing, 
 and her days and nights were becoming more 
 and more terrib] e. Dr. Butterworth has relieved 
 the most aggravated forms of all her symp- 
 toms. Now, in favor of which system lies the 
 preponderance of evidence? Nobody here ar- 
 gues or believes that there is danger of any 
 death for her but that of the body ; but a few 
 more weeks of such inhuman neglect as that 
 authorized by the Christian Science system, 
 and very few, would have utterly destroyed 
 the life of that." 
 
 "O, it is the old story," said Mrs. Morris, 
 with a gesture of contempt, " the old story. 
 All those symptoms in 'Liza did not prove 
 that she was not getting well not at all. 
 Why, as one of our writers has said, ' the 
 very treatment itself might serve to cause a 
 little revolution in the system.' " 
 
 "Granted. The only difficulty was," said 
 he, with a sort of grim humor, " that the rev- 
 olution was in the wrong direction. Every 
 revolution of your system of treatment brought 
 her that much nearer the grave." 
 
 " But can 't you see, Mr. Bartlett, that inert 
 matter can not suffer or have ailments ? Life 
 is God's gift, and can not even be sick. The
 
 158 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 great and only trouble lies in the fact of a 
 lack of harmony in the patient. If harmony 
 were there, it would first have to be displaced 
 before pain could intrude itself." 
 . " I see that you people get your argu- 
 ments wofully mixed. You say life can not 
 suffer or be sick. You admit that the body 
 has life ; that this life is from God, the source 
 of all harmony ; that this harmony pervades 
 everything to the extent that there can be no 
 evil ; and yet that it is the actual presence of 
 evil which makes the sickness possible. The 
 possibility of living on eternally, even in this 
 ' expression of God's idea ' of us, the flesh, 
 you boldly declare, if men will but establish 
 themselves on that assertion as an absolute 
 and unchangeable truth ; and then you go and 
 bury your own dead just the same as other 
 people do, although you do it affirming that 
 there is no death caused by sickness ; no evil, 
 the result of inharmony, that brought the 
 sickness; and that though inharmony of some 
 kind must have existed somewhere to have 
 produced this funeral, God's harmony per- 
 vades everything at all times, and no two 
 things can occupy the same space at the same 
 time. Now, what do you think of an argu- 
 ment like that ?"
 
 fffS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 159 
 
 " I think that you do not understand." 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Morris, I claim to have aver- 
 age intelligence, and have been making some- 
 thing of a study of this philosophy in my 
 own way. A lawyer has to be trained to an- 
 alyze evidence to weigh it and pronounce 
 upon its reasonableness and if I am too 
 obtuse to understand these mysticisms (and 
 people of my mental status), how is the vast 
 body of those yet lower in the mental scale 
 to be able to apply such a religion to its cry- 
 ing needs?" 
 
 " They do n't reason ; they simply exercise 
 faith." 
 
 "The time has gone by, Mrs. Morris, in 
 ecclesiastical history, when any arbitrary proc- 
 lamation of this nature finds a royal road to 
 recognition in the unquestioning belief of the 
 masses. A doctrine now, be it true or false, 
 must give a weighty reason for its own exist- 
 ence and propulsion, because there now exists 
 a higher standard of general intelligence, 
 which demands a practical faith. And while 
 I admit that, after reason has gone to the 
 length of its tether, faith, taking wings, must 
 still soar far above it, reason must be able to 
 follow that flight with indorsement of the pur- 
 pose and consideration that gave rise to it."
 
 160 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 " For the matter of that, what you call the 
 Christian religion has its very pronounced 
 mysteries," said she. 
 
 "Admitted. But they appear only when 
 we leave the realm of the outer actualities, 
 and begin to deal with the purely spiritual 
 just as a balloon gets into the clouds when 
 it rises and leaves the earth behind. But 
 your religion has no basis of actuality. It 
 begins, continues, and ends in the clouds. 
 Every man knows within himself that he ex- 
 ists ; and when you summon him to a Barme- 
 cide feast which is to feed him upon his own 
 nonentity, he is very likely to go away hungry. 
 God has made every human being an angle of 
 reflection, from which is ever echoed and re- 
 echoed his own sublime declaration, ' I am.' 
 To return, however, to the question of life and 
 its continuity, I shall refer you to what I con- 
 sider infallible proof that no amount of har- 
 monizing, or planting the feet on the asser- 
 tion that it is indestructible, will do away 
 with. I find it in the Bible. You Christian 
 Scientists go foraging through the Bible, pick- 
 ing up what you like and weaving it into your 
 fantasies, and leaving the remainder. You 
 don't carry away with you the assertion 
 David made in the nineteenth Psalm, that a
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. l6l 
 
 man's life is measured out to him by" years ; 
 that the average number is threescore and 
 ten ; that it may be more or less ; but that 
 there is in that vicinity a terminal point mark- 
 ing the end of the route. Let me see a Chris- 
 tian Scientist who can keep a man from grow- 
 ing old from reaching the summit of his 
 powers, and from thence beginning to decline. 
 O, Mrs. Morris, why don't some of you go 
 about preventing the mournful condition of 
 old age?" 
 
 The lady sat very straight and stiff, with a 
 flush of embarrassment on her che-ek, unable 
 to reply. 
 
 " I understand you have just buried your 
 father," he said. "I am sorry to hear it." 
 
 "Yes," said she, taking out her handker- 
 chief to wipe away a genuine tear. 
 
 "Was he dead?" 
 
 She paused, with the handkerchief half- 
 way to her eyes, and glared at him. 
 
 " If faith in a candidate for healing is not 
 necessary, I can not understand why the inner 
 illumination possessed by a healer who knows 
 that sickness, death, and evil do not exist, 
 should not be sufficient to enable such healer 
 to raise the dead as we consider them." 
 
 He got up and walked the floor excitedly. 
 M
 
 1 62 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 11 If I had been you, and known such a 
 thing as that, he should not have been buried. 
 I would have defied the physician, dismissed 
 the undertaker, and driven away the health- 
 officer. I would not have suffered rny living 
 father to have been buried under the ground. 
 Why did you not stand by your colors, and 
 cry it out from the house-top this wonderful 
 truth that ought to revolutionize the world? 
 Unless you are subscribing to a falsehood, 
 every grave that was ever dug holds in cruel 
 imprisonment some case of suspended, or 
 seemingly suspended, animation; and Tan- 
 ner's proposed experiment of being buried a 
 few months, with his tongue turned back into 
 his throat, would have been nothing new 
 tinder the sun." 
 
 " I 'low 't would be a nuff sight better, if 
 you '11 excuse me, sir, and ladies, for sayin' 
 so, ef lots er tongues was turned back inter 
 throats and stayed there," interrupted Josiah. 
 
 This acted as a slight diversion, enabling 
 Mrs. Morris to regain composure, glide rap- 
 idly away from the subject of Death, and 
 branch out upon that of Evil : 
 
 " I think it is so beautiful to feel that there 
 is no evil. Sometimes it comes over me with 
 such peculiar force! Last night it. was so
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 163 
 
 sweetly impressed upon me, as I was lying in 
 bed, that I said, aloud: 'Mother, there is 
 no evil!'" 
 
 "Is your mother dead, madam?" 
 
 "No, sir! She still resides in the State of 
 New York. But, as I was saying, it is a very 
 precious belief. I teach my little boy that 
 there is no evil, and it makes him fearless. 
 He climbs everywhere. He is n't afraid of 
 anything." 
 
 "But, supposing he falls out of a tree some 
 day, and breaks his arm what then?" 
 
 "Why, he won't know no better 'n to think 
 what a norful liar his marm must be!" again 
 interrupted Josiah. 
 
 Mrs. Morris could not leave the house in 
 dudgeon until Mr. Grim, who was collecting 
 money on a note at a house further away 
 down on "the valley pike," returned for her; 
 so she ignored this remark entirely. 
 
 "Do you healers set bones by 'entertain- 
 ing?' " continued Francis. 
 
 "Well, no; not yet!" reluctantly answered 
 she. "We hope to, before long." 
 
 "Well, in the suppositional case referred' 
 to if your little boy should break an arm or 
 a leg what would you do? Let it go unset, 
 and lose the arm or leg ; or, call in one of
 
 164 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 those doctors, the increase in whose numbers 
 is so startling?" 
 
 Mrs. Morris looked appealingly towards 
 Sadie | but this young lady was fastening and 
 unfastening the strap of her parasol, and 
 seemed much absorbed in the operation. She 
 did not rally to the assistance of her sister in 
 the faith, as might reasonably have been ex- 
 pected, and Mrs. Morris, becoming suddenly 
 more reticent, replied that there was "no use 
 in arguing upon a suppositional case." 
 
 "But accidents of this character occur, 
 somewhere, every day. What shall we do 
 with this great army of people with broken 
 bones, until such time as you can" here he 
 glanced swiftly and guiltily at Sadie "suc- 
 ceed in 'holding them to their right of soul- 
 growth,' and make ' every seeming organ of 
 the body dovetail into the soul's perfect 
 thought?' " 
 
 "Man must, until then, suffer 'the unpleas- 
 ant results of his unfaith, I suppose," replied 
 she, feebly. 
 
 "Why must he?" asked Francis. "If his 
 'unfaith,' as you call it, prevents him from 
 moving a broken limb and calling it whole 
 in obedience to the orders of an entertainer 
 who is trying to 'hold him to his right of
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 165 
 
 soul-growth ' what prevents him from calling 
 in a physician, who has scientific knowledge, 
 and having it set?" 
 
 Mrs. Morris was vainly casting about for a 
 reply, when Mrs. Eppert, gazing into space, 
 declared : 
 
 "I make one exception ter the b'leef that 
 there ain't no evil." 
 
 "What is that? 1 ' asked Mr. Bartlett. 
 
 "Licker!" said she, placidly; while Josiah, 
 who was sitting near the door, had sudden 
 business outside. 
 
 "I am afraid, Mrs. Morris," said Mr. Bart- 
 lett, in a gentle, insinuating voice, "that we 
 do not reckon from the same data. I do n't 
 know what your sacred book may be whether 
 it is called 'Ontology,' 'Theosophy,' or what 
 not but it can not be the Bible ; for that, in 
 the very beginning, speaks of a tree of the 
 'knowledge of good and evil,' which caused 
 our progenitors some considerable embarrass- 
 ment. And your term 'Christian,' regarding 
 your 'science,' must refer to some other 
 Christ 'not a person, but a principle' of 
 whom I know nothing. Our Christ taught 
 his disciples to pray : ' Deliver us from evil.' 
 Our Christ himself prayed to his Father, say- 
 ing he asked not that his disciples should be
 
 1 66 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 taken out of the world, but that he would 
 'keep them from the evil.' I understand 
 where you get your 'All-God, all-good.' It 
 comes from the Pantheistic belief that there 
 is no God, excepting the combined laws and 
 forces of the universe, whose general char- 
 acter is supposed to be good. It comes from 
 a modern rehabilitation of the philosophy of 
 Plato. It comes from Hindustan, and has 
 very much to do with that individual who is 
 represented sitting cross-legged on his foot, 
 with his ears turned down. Your God-good, 
 good-God, is accounted for; but where do you 
 get your Christ? He is a graft an interpola- 
 tion. Christians do not allow your process of 
 healing, which comes from an entirely differ- 
 ent source of faith and belief demonology, 
 for aught I know to have anything in com- 
 mon with the faith-cures of Scripture." 
 
 Mrs. Morris had gotten far beyond her 
 depth. Like many another, she had never 
 considered, until the matter was thus set be- 
 fore her, the points of variance between 
 "Christian Science" doctrine and the Bible, 
 which she was not yet fully prepared to 
 abjure. Sure enough, out of this "old the- 
 ology," whence did Christ come? 
 
 "It may be," said she, lamely, "that that
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 167 
 
 name has been attached to this power of 
 healing on account of the similarity of the 
 evidences found in the cures." 
 
 "They are very dissimilar. Christ said 
 to the sick and the palsied and the dead : 
 'Arise! walk!' and they arose, and walked. 
 His disciples made instantaneous cures. They 
 did not go day by day to use magnetism, hyp- 
 notism, or the influence of mind over mind 
 and matter, upon patients, for weeks, some- 
 times months, before proclaiming a cure ; and 
 then have it often result, at best, in but a 
 partial one. They were not so elusive in 
 their methods, either. They did not profess 
 to do any dove tai 1 ing of seeming body and 
 perfect soul thought. They said: ( In the 
 name of Jesus of Nazareth,' do ye thus and so. 
 Do you say that?" 
 
 " I never argue against prejudice," protested 
 Mrs. Morris. 
 
 Mr. Bartlett smiled faintly. The smile 
 stung and nettled his vis-a-vis. She had 
 seen it, in spite of the absence of her glasses. 
 
 "One question more, Mrs. Morris, if you 
 please." 
 
 "Certainly, sir!" 
 
 "Well, then, what is to become of the 
 moral restraints belonging to society and the
 
 1 68 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 world, if the doctrine of 'no evil' is to be 
 taught? The chances are that your boy may 
 climb a tree, and not fall from its branches ; 
 but if permitted to choose evil associations, 
 under the plea that there is no evil, he can 
 not but be corrupted. What about that? If 
 all is good, you have no right to restrain his 
 choice of different varieties of good." 
 
 Mrs. Morris replied that "Johnny naturally 
 chose the best ; if he did n't, she should regu- 
 late him." 
 
 "May I ask if your former treatment of 
 'Liza laid claim to as much as that of some 
 of your leaders? I refer to a statement made 
 in the teenth edition of a work by one of 
 your most prominent teachers. I came across 
 it accidentally, in a very hasty search for some 
 of your kind of 'truth.' She says she has 
 'often made new lung-tissue.' Is that your 
 way of curing lung disease?" 
 
 "Materially the same," said she, hastily. 
 
 "But" and Mr. Bartlett straightened him- 
 self in his chair, and transfixed her with a 
 steady gaze "don't you know that such a 
 thing was never done since the world stood, 
 unless it might have been by Christ, and if so, 
 we have no record of it?" 
 
 "No, sir, I do not know it."
 
 HIS COUSfN, THE DOCTOR. 169 
 
 "Do you know that it has? If so, how do 
 you know? How do you know, when your 
 patients say they are cured, that they are so? 
 May not their unreliable senses, and yours, 
 and those of every one who sees them appar- 
 ently restored, be in collusion, proclaiming a 
 gigantic lie? You have discredited the truth 
 and honor of the senses ; how, then, are you 
 going to be governed by their testimony in so 
 important a matter as this?" 
 
 Mrs. Morris wriggled on her chair a mo- 
 ment, and then gave up the argument by 
 saying: 
 
 "As we fail to understand each other, per- 
 haps this talk may not be very profitable." 
 
 She then turned to Josiah, who had again 
 ventured inside the door, and said: 
 
 "I intended to make no charges for 'Liza's 
 treatments ; but since you have shown your- 
 self so ungrateful for favors received, and 
 have taken her from me to put her into hands 
 that are always ready for fees, I will send in 
 my bill, which you can pay when you get able 
 to do so." 
 
 " I did n't never make no bargain with you 
 erbout 'Liza, marm. Ef Polly did, Polly 's 
 the one ter look to," said Joe. 
 
 " It 's quite astonishing," said Francis, med- 
 15
 
 1 70 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOX. 
 
 itatively, looking at the ceiling, " how much 
 stress 'Christian healers' lay on this seeming 
 money. It makes one feel almost as if they 
 fancied that it actually existed, and believed 
 in it as an agent for the preservation of their 
 apparent bodies from obvious death. It re- 
 ally yes, it really is the one bond of rela- 
 tionship that makes all methods of modern 
 cure akin. If I understand the matter prop- 
 erly, you claim that the greater the personal 
 purity and spirituality possessed by a healer, 
 the more perfect and complete will be the 
 cures effected." 
 
 Mrs. Morris glowered at him, and did not 
 reply. 
 
 " Now, I suppose it was largely so with 
 Christ's disciples. Some of them, at any rate, 
 were leaders. But I observe one great differ- 
 ence between your method and theirs, which 
 you may not have thought about. When 
 money was offered to Peter by the sorcerer for 
 the purchase of the laying on of hands, he 
 replied : ' Thy money perish with thee, be- 
 cause thou hast thought that the gift of God 
 may be purchased with money.' Yet you 
 Christian Scientists sell this 'pervasive har- 
 mony,' which is a direct attribute of the All- 
 good, as if it came by the pound, and stood
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 171 
 
 labeled, in a glass jar, on the shelf of a drug- 
 store." 
 
 " But we must live!" burst forth Mrs. Mor- 
 ris reluctantly, in self-defense. 
 
 "Certainly, certainly. I appreciate the 
 difficulty because you can not die !" 
 
 L/uckily for Mrs. Morris, at that moment 
 Mr. Grim and the restive roan dashed up to 
 the door, and he called out: 
 
 "Hurr' up, Mis's Morris; hurr' up! This 
 horse won't stand!" 
 
 She did not pause for lengthened adieus, 
 but bustled out and climbed into the wagon, 
 thankful that Mr. Grim, like a good fairy, 
 had arrived to spirit her away from her mer- 
 ciless tormenter.
 
 JARAH SPENCER, it is not too much to 
 
 say, was troubled to the very depths of 
 her soul. Surely, when she had drifted 
 into the study of "Christian Science," 
 and later into its promulgation as a teacher 
 and the practice of it as a "healer," she had 
 done so with eyes " holden," that she should 
 not see whither it led, nor yet the responsi- 
 bilities to which it committed her. 
 
 Troubled she indeed had been, to an un- 
 comfortable degree, after hearing Francis's 
 first exegetical discourse upon the subject. 
 Out of that trouble, in fact, had first arisen, 
 as a remorseful apparition, her philanthropic 
 designs concerning 'Liza, toward, whom she 
 accused herself of hard-heartedness in refus- 
 ing cold water. Out of it, also, had sprung 
 a resolution to abandon her " practice " until 
 she could thoroughly review her books of 
 mysticism, and compare them with the Bible 
 doctrines ; and a determination never to take 
 it up again if she found them so much at va- 
 riance as he had declared. Then, too, she re- 
 172
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 173 
 
 solved, until such time, not to oppose the use 
 of remedies in 'Liza's case or any other. 
 
 It was with a feeling like that with which 
 the penitent of the cloistered cell presses the 
 hair shirt to the sensitive flesh which it galls, 
 that she had poured out those easing drops 
 for the child. Not that she had ever before 
 had a prejudice against medicines. It was 
 only that enthusiasms are so contagious ; and 
 her strong love of the ideal in poetry and im- 
 agination needed not much fostering to de- 
 velop a corresponding ideal in philosophy. 
 
 This idea of a pervasive Presence, so pure 
 and permeating that it invested all things 
 with its purity, and made the existence of evil 
 impossible, had been beautiful to her at first 
 sight. She had not thought of it, however, 
 connected with the loss of individuality. She 
 had not followed out this line of faith and 
 reasoning to its legitimate conclusion in the 
 renunciation of Christ, in the "preaching of 
 another gospel," and the many other points 
 which Francis, in his speech, like the turning 
 of a kaleidoscope, had presented, in different 
 combinations, to her startled gaze. Was this 
 faith, indeed, built on nebulous foundations? 
 
 She sat down, seriously, and asked herself 
 what was the basis of her claim as a "healer."
 
 174 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 Could she give any " lucid, substantial " ac- 
 count of the process by which even the little 
 that she had accomplished, or thought she had 
 accomplished, was done? Had she indeed any 
 divine " illumination ?" Was she " wise in 
 the things of God?" Was it not, as Francis 
 had said, all the exercise of the influence of 
 the mind over mind and matter? Were people 
 generally so truthful in their assertions, that 
 statements of these miraculous cures without 
 remedies could be implicitly relied upon? 
 Was it not possible that many patients, liking 
 the iclat of such a cure as a metaphysical or 
 Christian Science one, yet feeling the need of 
 positive curative treatment, might have se- 
 cretly taken such, and acted and spoken an 
 untruth ? Were not the mental healers harsh, 
 unreasonable, and often false, likewise, toward 
 physicians who had been trained to lessen the 
 sufferings of their fellow-men by harmless and 
 useful means, which God himself had placed 
 at their disposal? False because, while mak- 
 ing claims to a superior source of knowledge, 
 they, by their own confessions, were compelled 
 to stop short of what medical practitioners 
 could and did do? If the "illumination" of 
 the Christian Scientist was from God, why 
 should it be more difficult for him to illutni-
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 175 
 
 nate sufficiently for the setting of a bone than 
 the curing of a headache? Why did they 
 show such contempt for services greater than 
 they themselves were, by their own showing, 
 able to render to humanity? 
 
 After long study of these questions, she 
 would put them away, only to have them re- 
 turn again with tenfold persistency. They 
 buzzed through her mind continually. 
 
 To be rid of them, she set herself reso- 
 lutely to the finishing of her lecture, prom- 
 ised for the next public monthly meeting of 
 the Christian Science Club, at the G. A. R. 
 Hall. 
 
 By way of quieting her conscience, she 
 said to herself that the two things had no 
 connection ; that in writing of the teachings 
 of Gautama, she did not necessarily indorse 
 his doctrines, although she was compelled to 
 admit that there had been times during the 
 last few weeks when she, too, had felt that to 
 cease to exist would seem to be the highest 
 good. She yearned for Nirvana. But, as she 
 studied and wrote, she could not stifle the 
 uneasy conviction that there was a great 
 similarity between Christian Science and 
 the dogmas which this brilliant Hindoo 
 propagator of a new religion taught, cen-
 
 176 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 turies before Christ, in the provinces of 
 India. 
 
 Then she would throw down her pen, and 
 go out and walk, declaring to herself that 
 she would write on the lecture no further, 
 only to return to it once more, remembering 
 that she had promised, and must fulfill her 
 engagement. 
 
 It was not until the afternoon of the even- 
 ing when it was to be delivered that the con- 
 cluding word was written upon the last page. 
 Then, deliberately, in her boldest chirography, 
 she traced beneath it the two words: 
 "THE END." 
 
 A resolution had been suddenly adopted, 
 and by the way in which the green dominated 
 the blue of her eyes, it seemed evident that it 
 was made to be kept. 
 
 She did not go down to the supper-table 
 that night. She had for days eaten but little, 
 and her nights had been restless with lack of 
 satisfying slumber. 
 
 We know of one of the factors which pro- 
 moted this unhealthy, unhappy condition of 
 body and mind; but there were others, like- 
 wise, a recognition of which she would not 
 admit even to her own consciousness. 
 
 She often, surreptitiously, as one would
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 177 
 
 revert to some secret and shameful delight 
 which it would be wrong to acknowledge 
 openly, thought of that cold touch of Fran- 
 cis's on her hand, on the day when she had 
 escaped a sudden danger. 
 
 She had, she knew, been guilty of that 
 very deed which he had satirically, and in 
 another connection, spoken of to Mrs. Morris 
 she had buried something which was yet 
 alive, and had said to herself that now t*- 
 was dead, and would trouble her no more. 
 
 But it had done what most corpses are 
 unaccustomed to do it had refused to lie 
 quiet! It had many days been stirring under 
 the rubbish of philosophy and theology and 
 profitless erudition, which had formed the 
 cairn of its sepulture the structure which 
 Youth always builds highest over bodies which 
 give most unequivocal signs of a still linger- 
 ing life. 
 
 What must Francis Bartlett think of her 
 now her arrogant assumptions, coupled with 
 her ignorant and blundering mistakes? But, 
 worst of all, what would he think of her to- 
 morrow? To-morrow! Ah! it seemed to her 
 there was nothing, anywhere, beyond to- 
 morrow ! 
 
 With a deep sigh, she laid down the fin-
 
 178 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 ished manuscript, and began the preparation 
 of her evening toilet. 
 
 There were sepia-tinted shadows under 
 her eyes, and her cheeks had lost a little of 
 their roundness. 
 
 She did not like the picture presented to 
 her view, and hastened her dressing, to be rid 
 of confronting it in the mirror. 
 
 Her black lace dress, though rich in tex- 
 ture, was plain enough in effect ; and she 
 hesitated a little when Nora came up, bring- 
 ing her a cluster of white roses "from Mr. 
 Francis," about fastening them in her cor- 
 sage. But, then, what did it matter? 
 
 Mrs. Littlefield, the chairman of the meet- 
 ing, called, in her carriage, to convey the 
 lecturer to the hall. The cracked bell of the 
 town-clock had sounded the last stroke of 
 eight, when Francis Bartlett put on his hat, 
 and followed in the same direction. 
 
 Towns, not yet grown to be cities, do in- 
 deed turn out surprising audiences to any- 
 thing in the line of home talent. The hall, 
 as on the evening of his return, was filled to 
 overflowing ; and again he took up his posi- 
 tion in an open doorway. On this occasion 
 the door was not the one at the extreme end 
 of the hall, but opened from a corridor at the
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 179 
 
 side, not far from the platform. There were 
 three of these doors, at equal distances from 
 each other, along the side of the long, some- 
 what narrow apartment, and all of them were 
 filled. 
 
 Mr. Bartlett did not, as he looked about 
 and saw the concourse of eyes which filled 
 the place, like to think that all of them were 
 to be leveled at Sadie. 
 
 Mrs. Littlefield and Miss Spencer entered 
 by a noiselessly swinging green door back of 
 the platform, and sat down in two upholstered 
 chairs. Sadie's was behind the reading-desk, 
 on which was a glass of water and a bouquet 
 of flowers. On a small table to the right, in 
 front of Mrs. Littlefield, was the program for 
 the evening, and a gavel, which the chairman, 
 after a moment's consultation with the lec- 
 turer, took up, and, by means of rapping with 
 it, called the meeting to order. 
 
 Mr. Charles Kridlinger, it was announced, 
 would open the exercises with Scripture read- 
 ing. Mr. Kridlinger was slender and pale, 
 and wore eye-glasses. He selected a chapter 
 containing the blindest and most unintelli- 
 gible prophecies to be found between the two 
 covers of the book, and read it in an emphatic 
 and impressive way as one who should say,
 
 l8o HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 " Behold, now ! To us have the mysteries of 
 the ages been made plain." 
 
 * Then Miss Flora Hollister, in a becoming 
 maize-colored gown, the waist of which had 
 "blossomed in purple and red," went to the 
 piano, on the back of which was the placard, 
 " Kindly lent for this occasion by the firm of 
 Hartstone & Wagner," and accompanied her 
 voice thereon while she sang a beautiful and 
 well-received song about the " Pure White 
 Lily of the Soul." 
 
 Mrs. Littlefield, upon its conclusion, im- 
 mediately introduced the lecturer, as the next 
 issue of the Weekly Item stated, " in a few 
 well-chosen words." 
 
 Francis scarcely knew what it was he had 
 been expecting; but he knew that he was fright-, 
 fully disappointed when Sadie arose, and, lay- 
 ing her manuscript on the desk, proceeded, 
 easily and gracefully with its delivery. 
 
 The subject-matter was, necessarily, a com- 
 pilation, noticeably lacking in those touches 
 of original thought which had displayed, to 
 some extent, her range of ideas in the former 
 one. But the language was her own, and the 
 matter itself new to the greater number of 
 her hearers, who seemed pleased, were atten- 
 tive, and could not withhold a tribute of per-
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. l8l 
 
 sonal admiration to this tall, pale, beautiful 
 young woman, so tastefully and unostenta- 
 tiously clad, even to the knot of colorless 
 flowers on her bosom. They all knew her 
 at least by sight and hearsay. ^They were 
 aware of the fact of her fortune and easy cir- 
 cumstances of life, and many of them consid- 
 ered it something brave and noble in her, 
 thus situated, to take so decided a stand in 
 religious matters, and, above all, visit and 
 "treat" the sick poor without money and 
 without price. It was a very well-disposed 
 audience, that gave respectful hearing to her 
 words. 
 
 When she had turned the last page, and 
 finished her paper with a well-rounded, high- 
 sounding period, she was uproariously ap- 
 plauded, although nothing in the subject 
 seemed to call for such a demonstration. 
 The audience was applauding her youth, 
 beauty, and intelligence, and toadying, as it 
 is the wont of human nature to do, to the 
 reputation of wealth in which it has neither 
 hope nor prospect of sharing. 
 
 In spite of his disapproval of the occasion 
 of it all, Francis's heart went out in amicable 
 forgiveness to those people, who, after having 
 ogled Sadie, atoned for it by their applause.
 
 1 82 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 Mrs. Littlefield was getting ready to make 
 some announcements, and a young girl in 
 white was stationed at the piano for the ren- 
 dering of the accompaniment to the doxol- 
 ogy; but, to the surprise of all, the lecturer 
 had not yet returned to her seat. The chair- 
 man looked at her inquiringly. A profound 
 silence settled over the house, and every eye 
 was upon her. She advanced from behind 
 the stand, which was a little to one side of 
 the center of the platform, and walked down 
 to the very front of it. 
 
 " My friends," said she, " I thank you for 
 your kind and interested attention this even- 
 ing, and will detain you but a moment longer. 
 I have resolved to renounce Christian Science 
 here and now, and all doctrines in any way 
 appertaining to it, as I have become con- 
 vinced that one and all of them are in direct 
 conflict with the teachings of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures and the religion of Jesus Christ. I do 
 this at this time because I feel it incumbent 
 upon me to make the renunciation in as pub- 
 lic and unequivocal a manner as I have be- 
 fore now advocated, taught, and professed to 
 practice the same." 
 
 In a dead silence, still unbroken, she 
 turned and walked, erect and stately, out at
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 183 
 
 the swinging green door into the anteroom 
 beyond. 
 
 Not all, nor indeed any but the lesser part 
 of the audience, were of the Christian Science 
 belief; and, at best, a public assembly is 
 fickle in its approval of sentiments and 
 opinions. There were also many orthodox 
 believers in the hall ; and as Sarah Spencer 
 sank into a seat on the other side of that 
 green door, cheer after cheer went up from 
 the people whose presence she had just left. 
 
 She lifted her head and listened, a 
 bright, restless color coming and going on 
 her cheeks. She heard the canzonet of cheers 
 followed by a storm of hisses. 
 
 The Scientists had rallied from their mo- 
 mentary stupefaction, and this was their 
 verdict.
 
 XIV. 
 
 .S Sadie passed out by the swinging 
 door, Francis Bartlett, whose heart was 
 beating like a trip-hammer, turned, and 
 
 ^ made his way through a group that had 
 crowded up uncomfortably close behind him, 
 to witness the astounding denouement which 
 had just occurred. He had only a few feet to 
 walk to reach a door leading into the anteroom 
 which Sadie had entered. 
 
 There was but a ghostly glimmer of light 
 in the room from the gas-jet, turned down to 
 a small blue bead ; but there was light enough 
 for him to see her, as she sat with her face 
 fallen in her hands, just as it had been borne 
 downward by that hurricane of hisses. 
 
 He went up to her, and laid his hand upon 
 her shoulder. 
 
 She looked up, a little wildly at first, then, 
 recognizing him, she said, in a broken voice: 
 
 "O Frank, is it you? Take me home !" 
 
 "Yes, yes! Don't tremble so! No one 
 is coming. Don't you hear Kridlinger? She 
 has set him to exhorting. There, there 1 Sit 
 still, while I bring your wraps !" 
 184
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 185 
 
 He strode over to a row of hooks upon 
 the side of the wall, from one of which hung 
 her long peasant-cloak, and over it, swung by 
 its narrow ties, her little evening capote. 
 
 He came back with them, and as she arose, 
 put them on her awkwardly, as men do 
 those things looking a little doubtfully for 
 the arm-holes in. the thin shirred wrap, and 
 getting the bonnet a trifle awry at first, but 
 settling it into proper place with a firm yet 
 gentle touch. 
 
 "Come, now!" said he, drawing her hand 
 under his arm, and starting toward the door. 
 
 She shrank back, timidly. 
 
 "O Frank! How can I? I can not pass 
 those dreadful people in the hall!" 
 
 "No, no! You will not have to pass them. 
 We will go down the other stairway." 
 
 Then he led her out, and almost carried 
 her down the stairs, so weak and tremulous 
 had she become when the stress of excitement 
 and determination which had borne her so 
 successfully through the ordeal of her public 
 renunciation was over. 
 
 He looked up at the lighted windows of 
 the hall, as they hurried along the sidewalk 
 beneath them, and drew a long breath of relief 
 
 and satisfaction. 
 
 16
 
 1 86 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 Surely, surely, there was something fine 
 and noble and worthy in a nature great enough 
 to rise so heroically to the courage of its con- 
 victions! 
 
 At the last she would not disappoint his 
 hopes for her, however might result his hopes 
 for himself. For, to this young man, who 
 had been bent so determinedly upon self-sac- 
 rifice, the intrinsic value of the woman her- 
 self had at length outweighed the lesser worth 
 of her possessions. 
 
 When they reached home, he took her up 
 to her own door, and stood outside to hear 
 the key turn in the lock after she had entered. 
 No one should question or annoy her in these 
 first hours of her humiliation and distress. 
 This was no time for even reassurance or con- 
 solation. His intuition told him that, until 
 the storm of pent-up feeling should have 
 burst and spent its first passionate fury, 
 neither one nor the other of these would 
 avail. 
 
 His mother, anxious and curious, waylaid 
 him in the lower hall with numberless in- 
 quiries. He felt like repelling them, one and 
 all, but some answer he was compelled to 
 give; so he told, in a few, straightforward words, 
 without comment, what had occurred.
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 187 
 
 This duty complied with, he went out 
 under the trees, and sat down on one of the 
 little rustic benches, from which he could see 
 Sadie's window. The shutters had not been 
 closed, and a black, open square, without a 
 glimmer of light, and only the ghostly sweep 
 of curtains behind it, confronted his gaze. 
 
 He thought of her there, lying, face down 
 perhaps, across the bed, in her lace gown or 
 it might be on the rug at its foot giving 
 vent to the first desperate heart-aching, heart- 
 breaking sobs that her shielded womanhood 
 had known. And the sorrows of her girlhood 
 had long since been soothed away. Sadie in 
 trouble Sadie, battling alone with something 
 magnified by her womanly fears into a ver- 
 itable Abaddon, was terrible to him! The 
 thought of that lovely cheek discolored with 
 tears, that fair hair disordered and pushed 
 aside with the abandon of grief, was insup- 
 portable to him. And in the realization 
 which came to him then of how little we can 
 do to save from sorrow those whom we love 
 the most, and the cry, "Help her, O God!" 
 which followed it, perhaps he breathed the 
 truest prayer of all his life up to that mo- 
 ment. 
 
 The next day Sadie kept her room. No
 
 1 88 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 answer came through the closed door to 
 Francis's words of persuasion and entreaty. 
 The damask-covered tray, with its Royal 
 Worcester service from her own cabinet, and 
 daintiest food from the household cuisine, stood 
 untouched outside the threshold. 
 
 Toward the middle of the forenoon Francis 
 went down to his office, and transacted some 
 necessary business in a mechanical, perfunc- 
 tory way. No one spoke to him of the event 
 of the evening before. There was something 
 forbidding in his mien. 
 
 Just at the dinner hour there was a pull at 
 the bell. Nora was arranging the soup-tureen 
 upon the table at the moment, and Mr. Bart- 
 lett, who chanced to be in the hall, opened 
 the door. A young man whom he remem- 
 bered first in pinafores and then knickerbock- 
 ers, but who now wore long trousers, and 
 sported a watch-chain a young man who 
 came ta his office once a month regularly on 
 a collecting tour went through with the for- 
 .mality of handing him a card, with the re- 
 quest that it be given to Miss Spencer. Me- 
 chanically, Mr. Bartlett glanced over it and 
 read : 
 
 "MR. JAMES MURRAY PENN, 
 
 Weekly Item."
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 189 
 
 Mr. Bartlett looked from the card to trie 
 young man, and said : 
 
 " Sorry, Jim, but she can't see you. You 
 will have to excuse her." 
 
 " Certainly. Very sorry. Hope she is 
 quite well. Is there any one here I can in- 
 terview in her stead?" 
 
 Mr. Bartlett considered a moment, then re- 
 plied : 
 
 " Yes, you can interview me." 
 
 The young man blushed rosy red. Repor- 
 torial duties had but lately been added to his 
 honors in the line of collector, typo, and devil, 
 and as yet failed to sit easily upon him. For 
 one thing, however, he was thankful ; that 
 was that he was to do the interviewing instead 
 of his vis-a-vis, planted before him as firmly 
 as as the Colossus at Rhode's, he thought, 
 recalling one of the editor's last able edito- 
 rials. Somehow, when Bartlett interviewed a 
 fellow he made him " give it up," whether he 
 wanted to or not, and the results of interviews 
 with him were so likely to land parties in the 
 lock-up, and give them free trips to the pen- 
 itentiary. 
 
 Nevertheless, the interview was brief. Mr. 
 Murray was not encouraged to become discur- 
 sive and give it latitude. With much stam-
 
 190 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 mering and hesitancy, he inquired into the 
 facts concerning the position taken by Miss 
 Spencer the evening before, at the public 
 meeting, on Christian Science. Mr. Bartlett 
 gave clear, crisp, unelaborated replies, that 
 were transferred in that Horace Greeley form 
 of short-hand which is popular with reporters 
 to the penny-pad taken from his pocket. 
 
 That the Item would not appear for several 
 days subsequent, and all this haste and illeg- 
 ibility was therefore unnecessary, did not at 
 all impair Mr. Murray's enjoyment of the same. 
 His mission being fulfilled, he tipped his hat 
 and went away. Francis Bartlett closed the 
 door upon his retreat with a sigh. " Poor 
 Sadie !" said he to himself. 
 
 Dinner was scarcely over, when an elder 
 from one of the Churches, accompanied by 
 one of his daughters, arrived, to congratulate 
 Miss Spencer upon the step she had taken, 
 and urge that she now go further and join the 
 Church. They had just retired, somewhat 
 disappointed at not having seen the young 
 lady, when the deacon of another came, with 
 his wife, on a duplicate mission. 
 
 These were good people, who meant well; 
 but in this case their zeal was not according 
 to knowledge. With a refined and sensitive
 
 HJS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 191 
 
 nature like Sadie's, two steps so important 
 yet dissimilar as renouncing Christian Sci- 
 ence and uniting with the Church, could not 
 follow one upon the other so closely. Identi- 
 fying herself with Christ's followers was some- 
 thing she was certain to do in the natural 
 course of events; but the balm of time, which 
 heals the heart's open wound, and tears of re- 
 pentance, which give clearer vision to the eyes 
 that shed them, were first needful here. God's 
 hand was upon her, and its tender touch was 
 the only one that could lead her now. 
 
 Mr. Bartlett did not return to the office, 
 but remained to assist his mother in the im- 
 promptu reception which followed, and see 
 that the right things were said and done. He 
 exerted himself to be agreeable and natural, 
 and pass off the occurrence, to which all re- 
 ferred as something they were "so glad" 
 about, as the only thing that could reason- 
 ably have been expected of a young woman 
 so intelligent as his cousin. 
 
 After a time all of them went away, by 
 ones and twos and threes. The hall table 
 was covered with cards and bouquets, to be 
 presented with the compliments of one and 
 another. Francis heaved another sigh as the 
 door closed after the last one of them.
 
 192 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 "This is a horrible world," said he. "No- 
 toody has a right to himself or his own life in 
 it Sadie never would have done it she 
 never could if she .had known what a noise 
 it was going to make." 
 
 " Everything makes a noise," said his 
 mother, shrugging her shoulders. "The 
 world's so hollow, you see. It's like talk- 
 ing into an empty barrel." 
 
 " You 're right, mother ; and it 's a blessed 
 acoustic arrangement that gives us the sound 
 as an accessory after the fact instead of before 
 it. If the noise heralded it, nobody would 
 ever do anything brave or independent." 
 
 Yes, it had been a weary day. He ac- 
 knowledged this as he sat in the shadow of 
 the trees once more, and looked for a glim- 
 mer of light in Sadie's window. Day's su- 
 perb painting of Titian tints had been with- 
 drawn with the sun, but night's exquisite 
 etching filled its place on nature's walls. 
 Each tree and shrub and blossom, and every 
 swaying branch, was silhouetted by the moon, 
 whose light transformed them from the fixed 
 and limited environments of common daylight 
 objects into subtle possibilities half-seen, 
 half-guessed at things, from which imagina- 
 tion conjures what it will.
 
 U IS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 193 
 
 Day rends the veil that hides old Earth's 
 most holy secrets from the vulgar gaze, which, 
 seeing, does not comprehend ; but night re- 
 stores it, woven from her shadows and her 
 dews ; and only reverent souls can lift its 
 mystic sweep to see the shine of cherubic 
 wings, and talk with God in silence. 
 
 Nothing was wanting to perfect the hour 
 but Sadie's presence and her love ; and, even 
 as he thought it, she came stealing dejectedly 
 through the shadows, all in white, as she used 
 to be in the old times, and sat down silently 
 beside him. He saw that her gown was the 
 most careless of house dresses, and her yellow 
 hair was all disordered under the white, fleecy 
 shawl, with its fringe, like valley lilies, thrown 
 over her head. He did not speak, but put his 
 hand out and took hers in a close clasp, from 
 which she drew it suddenly to wipe away her 
 tears. 
 
 "Poor girl!" said he. "Poor little Sadie!" 
 And this tall, goddess-like creature listened to 
 and did not repudiate the designation. 
 
 "You mustn't cry, dear," said he, softly. 
 
 At which she cried the more. 
 
 " I I am so terribly disgraced," said she. 
 
 "Nonsense, child! Nothing of the sort! 
 You have done a brave thing you " 
 17
 
 194 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 "But I was a fool first; you know I was, 
 Frank!" 
 
 This was the third time she had called him 
 "Frank" the old, familiar name since he 
 came home. 
 
 "I ought to have known better I ought 
 to have seen what I was doing, before I com- 
 mitted such ignorant, inexcusable blunders. 
 A child, who had gone to Sunday-school, 
 would have shown more sense than I. I 
 wanted to be learned, and I have been an 
 ignoramus; I wanted to do good, and have 
 brought myself only harm. Nobody will ever 
 have any respect for my opinions again ! O, * 
 if people could only go back, and live the 
 _,past over again, how differently they would 
 do! But, whether it stands for the best or 
 the worst that is in us, it stands forever. 
 Whether it stands for what we are, or the 
 cast-off chrysalis of what we were, it is eter- 
 nal. I have never represented the best that 
 is in me, and now I never shall. One's past 
 will not stay behind; but it gets in front of 
 one, like the angel with the sword, and for- 
 bids the going forward. I wish there was no 
 evil O, how I wish it! Why were we not 
 made incapable of mistakes and sins?" 
 
 "All of us have frequent occasion to cry
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOK. 195 
 
 'Peccavl!' but let us not weary God's ear 
 with the continuous cry. It is better, with 
 Paul, to do heroic * forgetting ' of ' those things 
 that are behind.' When I was in a Western 
 city at one time, stopping at a hotel, I heard 
 a terrible racket one night in the room next 
 to mine, as if some one was receiving a se- 
 vere beating. I paid but little attention to 
 it on the first occasion, but after hearing it 
 again and again, I asked the landlord what 
 it meant. He said the occupant of the room 
 was a young Japanese from Tokio, attending 
 the convention of civil engineers then being 
 held in the city, and that every night, before 
 retiring, he whipped the white devils out of 
 his clothes. 
 
 " We are often called upon to scourge white 
 devils of errors out of our theories and line 
 of conduct; but I don't believe it is espe- 
 cially gratifying to our Maker to have us keep 
 up the whipping upon ourselves forever. 
 The very fact that we may feel inclined to 
 do it, is what might be called prima facie evi- 
 dence that it is no longer necessary." 
 
 " But I can not pardon myself for the 
 lightness with which I rushed into such a 
 false position." 
 
 " My best hopes for you lie in the recogni-
 
 IQ6 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 tion of that very lightness. Had you stopped 
 to weigh the matter, and seriously examine its 
 claims to your espousal and championship, 
 and then ridden your tilt in its favor, yours 
 would have been a hopeless case. I recollect, 
 when I was a youngster, of having a terrible 
 attack of toothache ; and mother, as if she 
 was offering me a sweetmeat, told me I might 
 go and get the tooth pulled. I remember 
 how I went singing along the street (suppos- 
 ing myself the envy of other boys), ' I 'm 
 going down to Dr. Brown's to get a tooth 
 pulled.' Some of the boys gave me rather 
 knowing grins. One of them, I remember, 
 exclaimed, 'Jimmy Crickets !' I did n't un- 
 derstand what they meant, though, until after 
 I 'd felt the forceps. There are some things 
 we should never undertake at all if we did n't 
 do it lightly." 
 
 " Do n't you feel ashamed of me, then ?" 
 asked she in a sort of plaintive wonder, with 
 a surprised and wistful expression on the face, 
 set in the picturesque environment of the 
 white shawl. 
 
 "Yes, terribly," responded this hypocrite. 
 " There is only one thing for you to do now." 
 
 She looked up questioningly. 
 
 "Change your name," said he, catching
 
 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 197 
 
 her hand just in time to intercept a threat- 
 ened flight. " You must always have known 
 that I love you, Sadie. No one in all the 
 world, to my mind, is like you. This worry 
 and trouble is very ephemeral, and will soon 
 pass away. Society is always in a state of 
 transition, from one fine frenzy of foolishness 
 to another. If it should sometime see a pan- 
 oramic review of all its former follies and con- 
 ceits passing before it, I wonder if, like Judas, 
 it would not feel like going out and hanging 
 itself? You are going to rise up from this to 
 a nobler and grander womanhood. Shall it 
 not be to bless my life as its helper and 
 companion?" 
 
 She trembled with excitement and un- 
 speakable joy, but she only said: 
 
 " I do want to live on a higher level I do 
 indeed, Frank!" 
 
 " We will go away to Europe, and when 
 you come back with dresses from Worth's 
 and Felix's " 
 
 She laughed gleefully. 
 
 " What do you know about Felix ? And 
 the idea of setting up such standards for me ! 
 I care more now to make sure of the fine 
 linen which is the righteousness of the 
 saints."
 
 198 HIS COUSIN, THE DOCTOR. 
 
 She said this last with a sweet, shy, hes- 
 itating seriousness that touched his heart. 
 
 "Well, then, joking aside, we will settle 
 up our affairs, and go away from here and 
 begin anew in a wider field. I want a city 
 for my practice, you for social life and 
 better opportunities of culture; and if you 
 want real mission-work, you will find it ready 
 to your hand. I have thought of a change 
 like this for myself. It is no sudden resolu- 
 tion. Will you go with me, darling? Will 
 you go with me?" 
 
 She moved a little nearer to him in the 
 shadows. The white shawl fell away from 
 the face whose outlines it had half concealed, 
 and disclosed its changed and transfiguring 
 expression of happiness. Seeing this, Francis 
 stole an intrepid arm about her neck, and 
 heaved a sigh of perfect content as he laid his 
 trembling hand upon her cheek. 
 
 TUB END.
 
 A 000038668