stars, met his.

He could not but linger in the sick woman's room a little longer than
was necessary, and the sick woman unwittingly favored this, for she took
a great liking to him, and nothing seemed to refresh and amuse her amid
her pains like a little chat with this nice young man. And then the
young surgeon remarked that at such times Lucy was allowed to sit
quietly down and amuse herself with a little needlework, and he thought
this an excellent reason for making his visits as as long as he decently
could.

The young nurse and the young doctor all this while had conversed very
little with each other; but she listened and she gazed, and that was
quite enough. The case proved a very serious one. Poor Mrs. Saunders,
superintendent as she was, and not workwoman-driver, not slave--yet
could no more than the rest escape the deleterious effects of the close
work room. Her constitution was much impaired. The wines and cordials
she had accustomed herself to take to support nature, as she thought,
under these fatigues, had increased the mischief the wounds would not
heal as they ought; contusions would not disperse; the internal injury
in the chest began to assume a very threatening appearance. Mr. L. came
to the assistance of the young surgeon repeatedly--all that human skill
could do was done, but Mrs. Saunders grew alarmingly worse.

For a long time she resisted the evidence which her own sensations might
have afforded her and avoided asking any questions which might enlighten
her. She was determined not to die, and, even in a case so awfully
serious and real as this, people seem to cling to the persuasion so
prevailing in lighter circumstances, that because a thing _shan't_ be,
it won't be, and because they are determined it is not, it _is_ not. So,
for many days, Mrs. Saunders went on, exceedingly angry if every body
did not say she was getting better, and half inclined to dismiss her
young surgeon, much as she liked him, because he looked grave after he
had visited her injuries.

He _did_ look grave, very grave. He was exceedingly perplexed in his
mind as to what he ought to do: young surgeon as he was, fresh from
those schools which, alas! so many who are acquainted with them
represent as the very nurseries of infidelity and license both in speech
and action, he was a deeply, seriously pious man. Such young men there
are, who, like those three, walking unscathed through the furnace of
fire in the faith of the Lor