has catched him now on de street ob
Washington. When dat man sell him wife Massa Vincent buy her so as to
prevent her falling into bad hands. She safe now wid his mother at de
Orangery--dat's the name of her plantation."

"My patient must be quite an interesting fellow, young lady," the doctor
said, with a rather slight twinkle of his eye. "A very knight-errant!
But there is the house now; we shall soon see all about him."

Taking with him the case of instruments and medicines he had brought,
the doctor entered Vincent's room. Lucy entered first; and although
surprised to see a stranger with her, Vincent saw by her face that there
was no cause for alarm.

"I have brought you a doctor," she said. "You could not go on as you
were, you know. So Dan and I have been to fetch one."

The doctor now advanced and took Vincent's hand.

"Feverish," he said, looking at his cheeks, which were now flushed. "You
have been doing too much, I fancy. Now let us look at this wound of
yours. Has your servant got any warm water?" he asked Lucy.

Lucy left the room, and returned in a minute with a kettleful of warm
water and a basin, which was among the purchases she had made at Mount
Pleasant.

"That is right," the doctor said, taking it from her. "Now we will cut
open the shirt-sleeve. I think, young lady, you had better leave us,
unless you are accustomed to the sight of wounds."

"I am not accustomed to them, sir; but as thousands of women have been
nursing the wounded in the hospitals, I suppose I can do so now."

Taking a knife from the case, the doctor cut open the shirt from the
neck to the elbow. The shoulder was terribly swollen and inflamed, and a
little exclamation of pain broke from Lucy.

"That is the effect of walking and inattention," the doctor said. "If I
could have taken him in hand within an hour of his being hit, the matter
would have been simple enough; but I cannot search for the ball, or in
fact do anything, till we have reduced the swelling. You must put warm
poultices on every half hour, and by to-morrow I hope the inflammation
will have subsided, and I can then see about the ball. It evidently is
somewhere there still, for there is no sign of its having made its exit
anywhere. In the meantime you must give him two tablespoonfuls of this
cooling draught every two hours, and to-night give him this sleeping
draught. I will be over to-morrow morning to see him. Do not be uneasy
about him; the wound itself is