THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE.

A SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE.


Dr. Dolliver, a worthy personage of extreme antiquity, was aroused rather
prematurely, one summer morning, by the shouts of the child Pansie, in an
adjoining chamber, summoning old Martha (who performed the duties of
nurse, housekeeper, and kitchen-maid, in the Doctor's establishment) to
take up her little ladyship and dress her. The old gentleman woke with
more than his customary alacrity, and, after taking a moment to gather his
wits about him, pulled aside the faded moreen curtains of his ancient bed,
and thrust his head into a beam of sunshine that caused him to wink and
withdraw it again. This transitory glimpse of good Dr. Dolliver showed a
flannel night-cap, fringed round with stray locks of silvery white hair,
and surmounting a meagre and duskily yellow visage, which was crossed and
criss-crossed with a record of his long life in wrinkles, faithfully
written, no doubt, but with such cramped chirography of Father Time that
the purport was illegible. It seemed hardly worth while for the patriarch
to get out of bed any more, and bring his forlorn shadow into the summer
day that was made for younger folks. The Doctor, however, was by no means
of that opinion, being considerably encouraged towards the toil of living
twenty-four hours longer by the comparative ease with which he found
himself going through the usually painful process of bestirring his rusty
joints (stiffened by the very rest and sleep that should have made them
pliable) and putting them in a condition to bear his weight upon the