“Dear lady, thou art a miracle of good sense and compassionate bounty. I doubt thou hast saved thy sister from widow’s weeds,” said Dr. Hodgkin, seated by the bed, with his fingers on the patient’s wrist, and his massive gold watch in the other hand. “This sound sleep promises well, and the pulse beats somewhat slower and steadier than it did this morning. Then the case seemed hopeless, and I feared to give wine—though a free use of generous wine is my particular treatment—lest it should fly to his brain, and disturb his intellectuals at a time when he should need all his senses for the final disposition of his affairs. Great estates sometimes hang upon the breath of a dying man.” “Oh, sir, but your patient! To save his life, that would sure be your first and chiefest thought?” “Ay, ay, my pretty miss; but I had other measures. Apollo twangs not ever on the same bowstring. Did my sudorific work well, think you?” “He was bathed in perspiration when first I found him; but the sweat-drops seemed cold and deadly, as if life itself were being dissolved out of him.” “Ay, there are cases in which that copious sweat is the forerunner of dissolution; but in others it augurs cure. The pent-up poison which is corrupting the patient’s blood finds a sudden vent, its virulence is diluted, and if the end prove fatal, it is that the patient lacks power to rally after the ravages of the disease, rather than that the poison kills. Was it instantly after that profuse sweat you gave him the wine, I wonder?” “It was as speedily as I could procure it from the cellar below.” “And that strong wine, given in the nick of time, reassembled Nature’s scattered forces, and rekindled the flame of life. Upon my soul, sweet young lady, I believe thou hast saved him! All the drugs in Bucklersbury could do no more. And now tell me what symptoms you have noted since you have watched by his bed; and tell me further if you have strength to continue his nurse, with such precautions as I shall dictate, and such help as I can send you in the shape of a stout, honest, serving-wench of mine, and a man to guard the lower part of your house, and fetch and carry for you?” “I will do everything you bid me, with all my heart, and with such skill as I can command.” “Those delicate fingers were formed to minister to the sick. And you will not shrink from loathsome offices—from the application of cataplasms, from cleansing foul sores? Those blains and boils upon that poor body will need care for many days to come.” “I will shrink from nothing that may be needful for his benefit. I should love to go on nursing him, were it only for my sister’s sake. How sorry she would feel to be so far from him, could she but know of his sickness!”