"How dare you!" she began, in the mortification and passion that came upon her; and then, thoroughly mastered, and unable to control herself longer, she burst into a wild hysterical fit of laughter and hurried out of the room. Jack Scales rose and stood watching the door as it swung to, and there was a look of tenderness and regret in his countenance as he muttered: "Too bad--too bad! Brutal and insulting! And to a woman--a lady of her position and refinement! I'll go and beg her pardon--ask her to forgive me--make confession of why I spoke so.--No. Put my head beneath her heel, to be crushed by her contempt! It wouldn't do. She goaded me to it. She wants to triumph over me. I could read her looks. If she cared for me, and those looks were real, I'd go down upon my knees humbly and tell her my sorrow; and then--then--then--What should I do then? "Hah!" he cried, after a pause, "what would you do then, Jack Scales! Go away, and never set eyes upon her again, for it would not do. It is impossible, and I am a fool." He stood with his brows knit for a few minutes, and then said, in quite a different mood: "And now I am a man of the world again. Yes; you are about the most handsome woman I ever saw; but a woman is but a woman to a doctor, be she titled or only a farmer's lass. Blue blood is only a fiction after all; for if I blooded my lady there, pretty Fanny Cressy, and one of Brother William Cressy's pigs into separate test tubes, and placed them in a rack; and if, furthermore, I left them for a few minutes, and some busybody took them up and changed their places, I might, when I returned, fiddle about for long enough with the various corpuscles, but I could not tell which was which.--Lady Martlett, I am your very obedient servant, but I am not going to be your rejected slave." Volume 2, Chapter VII. THE DOCTOR DISCOURSES. "My back's a sight better, sir, wi' that stuff you said I was to get, and I thank you kindly for it," said John Monnick, as the doctor seated himself one day close by where the old man was busy weeding a bed in the flower-garden--a special task that he would not entrust to any one else. "I'm glad of it, Monnick--very glad." "But master don't seem no better, sir, if you'll excuse me for saying so." "Yes, Monnick, I'll excuse you," said the doctor sadly. "As you say, he is very little better if any. I'm afraid that pond emptying began the work the accident finished." "It frets me, sir, it do--it do indeed. For only to think of it: him so stout and straight and hearty one day, and as wan and thin and bad the next as an old basket. Ah! it's a strange life this here." "True Monnick, true," said the doctor.