Of one thing only have I been made sure; that it was the Colonel who
lit the brand which fired Orrin's cottage.

A MEMORABLE NIGHT.

CHAPTER I.

I am a young physician of limited practice and great ambition. At the
time of the incidents I am about to relate, my office was in a
respectable house in Twenty-fourth Street, New York City, and was
shared, greatly to my own pleasure and convenience, by a clever young
German whose acquaintance I had made in the hospital, and to whom I
had become, in the one short year in which we had practised together,
most unreasonably attached. I say unreasonably, because it was a
liking for which I could not account even to myself, as he was neither
especially prepossessing in appearance nor gifted with any too great
amiability of character. He was, however, a brilliant theorist and an
unquestionably trustworthy practitioner, and for these reasons
probably I entertained for him a profound respect, and as I have
already said a hearty and spontaneous affection.

As our specialties were the same, and as, moreover, they were of a
nature which did not call for night-work, we usually spent the evening
together. But once I failed to join him at the office, and it is of
this night I have to tell.

I had been over to Orange, for my heart was sore over the quarrel I
had had with Dora, and I was resolved to make one final effort towards
reconciliation. But alas for my hopes, she was not at home; and, what
was worse, I soon learned that she was going to sail the next morning
for Europe. This news, coming as it did without warning, affected me
seriously, for I knew if she escaped from my influence at this time, I
should certainly lose her forever; for the gentleman concerning whom
we had quarrelled, was a much better match for her than I, and almost
equally in love. However, her father, who had always been my friend,
did not look upon this same gentleman's advantages with as favorable
an eye as she did, and when he heard I was in the house, he came
hurrying into my presence, with excitement written in every line of
his fine face.

"Ah, Dick, my boy," he exclaimed joyfully, "how opportune this is! I
was wishing you would come, for, do you know, Appleby has taken
passage on board the same steamer as Dora, and if he and she cross
together, they will certainly come to an understanding, and that will
not be fair to you, or pleasing to me; and I do not care who knows
it!"

I gave him one