band, his needs, his movements, were now the centre around
which her fine and ceaseless activity revolved. There was not a trace
of sentimental expression to this absorption. A careless observer might
have said that her manner was deficient in tenderness; that she was
singularly chary of caresses and words of love. But one who saw deeper
would observe that not the smallest motion of the doctor's escaped her
eye; not his lightest word failed to reach her ear; and every act of
hers was planned with either direct or indirect reference to him. In
his absence, she was preoccupied and uneasy; in his presence, she was
satisfied, at rest, and her face wore a sort of quiet radiance hard to
describe, but very beautiful to see. As for Dr. Eben, he thought he had
entered into a new world. Warmly as he had loved and admired Hetty, he
had not been prepared for these depths in her nature. Every day he said
to her, "Oh, Hetty, Hetty! I never knew you. I did not dream you
were like this." She would answer lightly, laughingly, perhaps almost
brusquely; but intense feeling would glow in her face as a light shines
through glass; and often, when she turned thus lightly away from him,
there were passionate tears in her eyes. It very soon became her habit
to drive with him wherever he went. Old Doctor Tuthill had died some
months before, and now the county circuit was Doctor Eben's. His love
of his profession was a passion, and nothing now stood in the way of his
gratifying it to the utmost. Books, journals, all poured in upon him.
Hetty would have liked to be omniscient that she might procure for him
all he could desire. Every morning they might be seen dashing over the
country with a pair of fleet, strong gray horses. In the afternoon, they
drove a pair of black ponies for visits nearer home. Sometimes, while
the doctor paid his visits, Hetty sat in the carriage; and, when she
suspected that he had fallen into some discussion not relative to the
patient's case, she would call out merrily, with tones clear and ringing
enough to penetrate any walls: "Come, come, doctor! we must be off." And
the doctor would spring to his feet, and run hastily, saying: "You see I
am under orders too: my doctor is waiting outside." Under the seat,
side by side with the doctor's medicine case, always went a hamper which
Hetty called "the other medicine case;" and far the more important it
was of the two. Many a poor patient got well by help of Hetty's soups
and je