stone causeway before the
door, and lifted the latch as cautiously as if he were afraid to disturb
some sleeping baby.

He had given me no information with regard to my patient; and the sole
idea I had formed of her was of a strong, sturdy Sark woman, whose
constitution would be tough, and her temperament of a stolid, phlegmatic
tone. There was not ordinarily much sickness among them, and this case
was evidently one of pure accident. I expected to find a nut-brown,
sunburnt woman, with a rustic face, who would very probably be impatient
and unreasonable under the pain I should be compelled to inflict upon
her.

It had been my theory that a medical man, being admitted to the highest
degree of intimacy with his patients, was bound to be as insensible as
an anchorite to any beauty or homeliness in those whom he was attending
professionally; he should have eyes only for the malady he came to
consider and relieve. Dr. Dobree had often sneered and made merry at my
high-flown notions of honor and duty; but in our practice at home he had
given me no opportunities of trying them. He had attended all our
younger and more attractive patients himself, and had handed over to my
care all the old people and children--on Julia's account, he had said,
laughing.

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

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

But when my eye fell upon the face resting on the rough pillow I paused
involuntarily, only just controlling an explanation of surprise. There
was absolutely nothing in the surroundings to mark her as a lady, yet I
felt in a moment that she was one. There lay a