but rather what we call hysterical."

"You will permit me now to see her. Take comfort; in all you tell me I
see nothing to warrant serious alarm."




CHAPTER X.

To the true physician there is an inexpressible sanctity in the sick
chamber. At its threshold the more human passions quit their hold on his
heart. Love there would be profanation; even the grief permitted to
others he must put aside. He must enter that room--a calm intelligence.
He is disabled for his mission if he suffer aught to obscure the keen
quiet glance of his science. Age or youth, beauty or deformity, innocence
or guilt, merge their distinctions in one common attribute,-human
suffering appealing to human skill.

Woe to the households in which the trusted Healer feels not on his
conscience the solemn obligations of his glorious art! Reverently as in a
temple, I stood in the virgin's chamber. When her mother placed her hand
in mine, and I felt the throb of its pulse, I was aware of no quicker beat
of my own heart. I looked with a steady eye on the face more beautiful
from the flush that deepened the delicate hues of the young cheek, and the
lustre that brightened the dark blue of the wandering eyes. She did not
at first heed me, did not seem aware of my presence; but kept murmuring to
herself words which I could not distinguish.

At length, when I spoke to her, in that low, soothing tone which we