that my reason would
approve. But day upon day, week upon week, passed away, and though among
the families I visited there were many young ladies who possessed more
than the qualifications with which I conceived that I should be amply
contented, and by whom I might flatter myself that my proposals would
not be disdained, I saw not one to whose lifelong companionship I should
not infinitely have preferred the solitude I found so irksome.

One evening, in returning home from visiting a poor female patient whom
I attended gratuitously, and whose case demanded more thought than that
of any other in my list,--for though it had been considered hopeless in
the hospital, and she had come home to die, I felt certain that I could
save her, and she seemed recovering under my care,--one evening--it was
the fifteenth of May--I found myself just before the gates of the house
that had been inhabited by Dr. Lloyd. Since his death the house had been
unoccupied; the rent asked for it by the proprietor was considered high;
and from the sacred Hill on which it was situated, shyness or pride
banished the wealthier traders. The garden gates stood wide open, as
they had stood on the winter night on which I had passed through them
to the chamber of death. The remembrance of that deathbed came vividly
before me, and the dying man's fantastic threat rang again in my
startled ears. An irresistible impulse, which I could not then account
for, and which I cannot account for now,--an impulse the reverse of that
which usually makes us turn away with quickened step from a spot that
recalls associations of pain,--urged me on through the open gates up the
neglected grass-grown road, urged me to look, under the weltering sun of
the joyous spring, at that house which I bad never seen but in the gloom
of a winter night, under the melancholy moon. As the building came in
sight, with dark-red bricks, partially overgrown with ivy, I perceived
that it was no longer unoccupied. I saw forms passing athwart the open
windows; a van laden with articles of furniture stood before the door;
a servant in livery was beside it giving directions to the men who were
unloading. Evidently some family was just entering into possession.
I felt somewhat ashamed of my trespass, and turned round quickly to
retrace my steps. I had retreated but a few yards, when I saw before me,
at the entrance gates, Mr. Vigors, walking beside a lady apparently of
middle age; while, just at hand,