"You are very much fatigued, my dear child, and as soon as I have given some directions to Robert, I will take you home. Get your bonnet, and meet me at the door." He took a shawl that was lying on the piano and laid it carefully over the sleeper, then bent one knee beside the sofa, and mutely prayed that God would comfort and protect the woman who was becoming so dear to him. With one long, anxious, tender look into her hopeless yet beautiful face, he left the room and went in search of Robert and Katie. When he had given the requisite directions, and descended the steps, he found Salome waiting, with her fingers grasping the side of the buggy. Silently he handed her in; and, as she sank back in one corner and muffled her face, they drove swiftly through the sombre grounds, where the aged trees seemed murmuring in response to the ceaseless mutter of the sullen sea. "Whom first we love, you know, we seldom wed. Time rules us all. And Life indeed is not The thing we planned it out ere hope was dead. And then we women cannot choose our lot." CHAPTER XXI. "Ulpian, you certainly do not intend to sit up again to-night? Even brass or whitleather would not stand the wear and tear that your constitution is subjected to. You really make me unhappy." "My dear Jane, it would make you still more unhappy if from mere desire to promote my personal ease and comfort, I could forget the solemn responsibility imposed by my profession. Moreover, my physical strength is quite equal to the tax I exact from it." "I doubt it, for we have all remarked how pale and worn you look." "My jaded appearance is attributable to mental anxiety, rather than bodily exhaustion." "If Mrs. Gerome is so ill as to require such unremitting care and vigilance, she should have a nurse, instead of expecting a physician to devote all his time and attention to her. Where is Hester Denison?" "I have placed her at the steam-mill above town, where there is a bad case of small-pox, and even if she were not thus engaged, I should not take her to 'Solitude.'" "Pray, why not? She took first-rate care of me when I was so sick last year." "Mrs. Gerome is morbidly sensitive at all times, and at this juncture I should be afraid to introduce a stranger into her sick room." "When people are so excessively nervous about being seen, I can't help feeling a little suspicious. Do you suppose that Mrs. Gerome loved her husband so much better than the majority of widows love theirs, that seven years after his death she can't bear to be looked at? I like to see a woman show due respect to her husband's memory, but I tell you my experience--or rather my observation--leads me to believe that these young widows who make the greatest parade of their grief, and load themselves with crape and bombazine till they can scarcely stagger under their flutings, flounces, and jet-fringes, are the most anxious to marry again."