CHAPTER XI.

With what increased benignity I listened to the patients who visited me
the next morning! The whole human race seemed to be worthier of love, and
I longed to diffuse amongst all some rays of the glorious hope that had
dawned upon my heart. My first call, when I went forth, was on the poor
young woman from whom I had been returning the day before, when an
impulse, which seemed like a fate, had lured me into the grounds where I
had first seen Lilian. I felt grateful to this poor patient; without her
Lilian herself might be yet unknown to rue.

The girl's brother, a young man employed in the police, and whose pay
supported a widowed mother and the suffering sister, received me at the
threshold of the cottage.

"Oh, sir, she is so much better to-day; almost free from pain. Will
she live now; can she live?"

"If my treatment has really done the good you say; if she be really
better under it, I think her recovery may be pronounced. But I must first
see her."

The girl was indeed wonderfully better. I felt that my skill was
achieving a signal triumph; but that day even my intellectual pride was
forgotten in the luxurious unfolding of that sense of heart which had so
newly waked into blossom.

As I recrossed the threshold, I smiled on the brother, who was still