The doctor bent over her. She gave him her hand, and, hardly able to speak, expressed her pleasure at seeing him again. He felt her pulse, applied his ear to her chest, making a very careful examination of her condition. He shook his head, and Julia trembled like an aspen. He spoke of lung fever. It was a dangerous disease at the patient’s time of life, and with her peculiar constitution. But the doctor went to work. He gave her medicine; he applied poultices, draughts, lotions. He did not leave her bedside during the remainder of the night. Before daylight she was comparatively comfortable, and slept a little. Dr. Lynch said the physician had not been called soon enough; and Mrs. Hungerford had typhoid-pneumonia. For two weeks he was as diligent, as watchful, as interested, apparently, as he had been in Julia’s illness. It was a sickly season in Poppleton, and he was worked night and day. He grew pale; he would drop asleep while sitting at the bedside of his Pine Hill patient. Julia was afraid the doctor would be sick himself; but he would remit no portion of his attentions to her mother. Mrs. Hungerford began to improve. Again came rich wines, grapes from foreign shores, and bouquets from the conservatories of the great city; but whether or not the doctor brought these things for consistency’s sake, the reader may judge. At any rate, no one at Pine Hill thought of the errors of Dr. Lynch; in fact, he was again the demigod of Pine Hill. His patient had not been as near to death’s door as Julia was; but she might have been if the doctor had been less faithful, less skilful; might have died in the hands of an ordinary physician; so the family were willing to believe. Dr. Lynch saw Julia every day, several times a day, during her mother’s severe illness. He sat for hours with her by the bedside of the invalid. His former relations were apparently reëstablished, and he did not conceal from her the pleasure her society afforded him. “Your mother is pretty well now, Miss Hungerford,” said he, one day, when the patient was down stairs. “I think she needs a physician no longer.” “But you will see her occasionally, doctor?” “Perhaps not; it is hardly proper for me to come here, except professionally,” replied the doctor, glancing into the fair eyes of the beautiful girl. “Proper--why not?” said she, her cheek glowing. “It depends upon circumstances. If you will favor me with ten minutes’ private conversation, I can answer better.” “I will, with pleasure. Take a seat, doctor.” It was in the sitting-room, and they were alone. CHAPTER XXIX. FORGIVE AND FORGET. Julia doubtless anticipated the subject of the interview. Her cheek was crimson, but there was a certain resolution manifested in her eye which might have foreboded ill to the doctor’s hopes, or might have been merely the effect of that bracing up of the nerves which is necessary to enable a maiden to meet what she desires, yet dreads.