was
at home, then,--I had accomplished my mission. It was no matter if I
died, since Peggy might be saved. I really thought I was going to die, I
felt so dull and faint and breathless. I sunk down on the stone steps,
just as the door was opened by Dr. Harlowe himself, whom I had seen, but
never addressed before. Placing his left hand above his eyes, he looked
out, in search of the messenger who had roused him from his slumber. I
tried to rise, but was too much exhausted. I could scarcely make my
errand understood. I had run a mile without stopping, and now I _had_
stopped, my limbs seemed turned into lead and my head to ice.

"My poor child!" said the doctor, in the kindest manner imaginable. "You
should not have come yourself at this hour. It was hardly safe.
Why,--you have run yourself completely out of breath. Come in, while
they are putting my horse in the buggy. I must give _you_ some medicine
before we start."

He stooped down and almost lifted me from the step where I was seated,
and led me into what appeared to me quite a sumptuous apartment, being
handsomely carpeted and having long crimson curtains to the windows. He
made me sit down on a sofa, while he went to a closet, and pouring out a
generous glass of wine, insisted upon my drinking it. I obeyed him
mechanically, for life seemed glowing in the ruddy fluid. It was. It
came back in warmth to my chilled and sinking heart. I felt it stealing
like a gentle fire through my whole system,--burning gently, steadily on
my cheek, and kindling into light my heavy and tear-dimmed eyes. It was
the first glass I had ever tasted, and it ran like electricity through
my veins. Had the doctor been aware of my previous abstinence, he might
not have thought it safe to have offered me the brimming glass. Had I
reflected one moment I should have swallowed it less eagerly; but I
seemed sinking, sinking into annihilation, when its reviving warmth
restored me. I felt as if I had wings, and could fly over the dreary
space my weary feet had so lately overcome.

"You feel better, my dear," said the doctor, with a benevolent smile, as
he watched the effect of his prescription. "You must not make so
dangerous an experiment again as running such a distance at this time of
night. Peggy's life is very precious, I dare say, and so is yours. Are
you ready to ride? My buggy is not very large, but I think it will
accommodate us both. We will see."

Though it was the first time I had ever