"In another minute John Ross was in the chamber before the little sufferer, lying pale and wasted upon its weeping mother's knees. For a moment the young surgeon was almost unmanned, when, looking to him as her last hope, the weeping woman raised her red eyes, and joined her hands supplicatingly, as if to say, `Oh, save--oh, save my child!' "Wealth was there, glancing from every article of furniture in the handsome room, but the cold grim shade that visits the palace with the same stern justice as the lowly cottage, seemed to be also there waiting for a few brief moments ere he claimed his own. "For a moment John Ross thought he was too late, and his brow knit with disappointment; but the next instant he drew a long breath, and as if nerving himself to the struggle with the destroyer, he threw off his coat, knelt down, and softly lifted one blue lid, to gaze in the contracted pupil of the child's eye, and listened to its faint, sighing breath. "`Cold water--towels--vinegar,' he then said, in quick, firm tones. `Now brandy. What have you there, arrowroot? Yes; good. Now the brandy--quick!' "Father and servants flew to execute his commands, and in a few seconds the tightly-closed lips were parted, and with difficulty a little brandy and arrowroot was swallowed. Towels saturated with vinegar and water were wrapped round the little golden head, and extemporising a fan from an open book, the young surgeon placed the father at his child's head to keep up a sharp agitation of the air, and ran himself to throw open the window. "Directly after he was back, and watching the child with an earnestness barely equalled by its parents, as at intervals he spoke, after drawing out his watch and referring to it from time to time. "`Look,' he said, in short, peremptory tones: `the eyes are unclosing, the pupils dilate already, there is a little more pulsation--that sigh was stronger. Keep up the fanning, sir; now another towel, and colder water.' Fresh applications were made, and then another anxious interval ensued, during which the dark shadow of death seemed to fade, and in a wondrous manner light--the faintest dawn of life--seemed to return into the child's face. "`Good, so far!' exclaimed Mr Ross, while father and mother watched him with an aspect almost approaching to the veneration that must have beamed in the face of the Shunammite woman when the `Man of God' raised her child from the dead. And truly this seemed almost a miracle--the miracle of science given by the Great Creator to those who will study and learn His wonders. "But now Mr Ross was at a table, hurriedly writing out a prescription on a leaf of his pocket book. "`Take that,' he said to Mr Western--`take it yourself to my wife, and bring back what she prepares.' "`To your wife?' stammered the father. "`Yes, to my wife,' said the young surgeon. `There, man, I'd trust my life to her accuracy, so do not be afraid.'