learned physician in the town, and was quite well aware of it, and could
talk his learning with ease and precision, and liked to show off when he
had an audience, he was sometimes tempted into revealing more of a case
than was good for the patient.

He examined Angelo's wound, and was really minded to say nothing for
once; but Aunt Patsy was so anxious and so pressing that he allowed his
caution to be overcome, and proceeded to empty himself as follows, with
scientific relish:

"Without going too much into detail, madam--for you would probably not
understand it, anyway--I concede that great care is going to be necessary
here; otherwise exudation of the esophagus is nearly sure to ensue, and
this will be followed by ossification and extradition of the maxillaris
superioris, which must decompose the granular surfaces of the great
infusorial ganglionic system, thus obstructing the action of the
posterior varioloid arteries, and precipitating compound strangulated
sorosis of the valvular tissues, and ending unavoidably in the dispersion
and combustion of the marsupial fluxes and the consequent embrocation of
the bicuspid populo redax referendum rotulorum."

A miserable silence followed. Aunt Patsy's heart sank, the pallor of
despair invaded her face, she was not able to speak; poor Rowena wrung
her hands in privacy and silence, and said to herself in the bitterness
of her young grief, "There is no hope--it is plain there is no hope"; the
good-hearted negro wench, Nancy, paled to chocolate, then to orange, then
to amber, and thought to herself with yearning sympathy and sorrow, "Po'
thing, he ain' gwyne to las' throo de half o' dat"; small Henry choked
up, and turned his head away to hide his rising tears, and his brother
Joe said to himself, with a sense of loss, "The baptizing's busted,