n. Who else can it be?"

Again the red eye shot over me, and I felt my cheek redden beneath it.

"Hush!" she said, lowering her voice; "you are in love!"

"In love!--I! Permit me to ask you why you think so?"

"The signs are unmistakable; you are altered in your manner, even in the
expression of your face, since I last saw you; your manner is generally
quiet and observant,--it is now restless and distracted; your expression
of face is generally proud and serene,--it is now humbled and
troubled. You have something on your mind! It is not anxiety for your
reputation,--that is established; nor for your fortune,--that is made;
it is not anxiety for a patient or you would scarcely be here. But
anxiety it is,--an anxiety that is remote from your profession, that
touches your heart and is new to it!"

I was startled, almost awed; but I tried to cover my confusion with a
forced laugh.

"Profound observer! Subtle analyst! You have convinced me that I must
be in love, though I did not suspect it before. But when I strive to
conjecture the object, I am as much perplexed as yourself; and with you,
I ask, who can it be?"

"Whoever it be," said Mrs. Poyntz, who had paused, while I spoke, from
her knitting, and now resumed it very slowly and very carefully, as if
her mind and her knitting worked in unison together,--"whoever it be,
love in you would be serious; and, with or without love, marriage is
a serious thing to us all. It is not every pretty girl that would suit
Allen Fenwick."

"Alas! is there any pretty girl whom Allen Fenwick would suit?"

"Tut! You should be above the fretful vanity that lays traps for a
compliment. Yes; the time has come in your life and your career when
you would do well to marry. I give my consent to that," she added with
a smile as if in jest, and a slight nod as if in earnest. The knitting
here went on more decidedly, more quickly. "But I do not yet see the
person. No! 'T is a pity, Allen Fenwick" (whenever Mrs. Poyntz called
me by my Christian name, she always assumed her majestic motherly
manner),--"a pity that, with your birth, energies, perseverance,
talents, and, let me add, your advantages of manner and person,--a pity
that you did not choose a career that might achieve higher fortunes and
louder fame than the most brilliant success can give to a provincial
physician. But in that very choice you interest me. My choice has been
much thesame,--a small circle, but the first in it. Yet, had