which, she rightly conjectured, he did not suspect. As he brought his
ivory-headed cane, his sleek drab broadcloth, and his herbaceous
fragrance into the kitchen, she was almost overpowered.

"How is thy son ailing?" he asked. "He always seemed to me to be a very
healthy young man."

She described the symptoms with a conscientious minuteness.

"How was it brought on?" he asked again.

She had not intended to relate the whole story, but only so much of it
as was necessary for the Doctor's purposes; but the commencement excited
his curiosity, and he knew so skilfully how to draw one word after
another, suggesting further explanations without directly asking them,
that Mary Potter was led on and on, until she had communicated all the
particulars of her son's misfortune.

"This is a wonderful tale thee tells me," said the Doctor--"wonderful!
Sandy Flash, no doubt, has reason to remember thy son, who, I'm told,
faced him very boldly on Second-day morning. It is really time the
country was aroused; we shall hardly be safe in our own houses. And all
night in the Brandywine flood--I don't wonder thy son is unwell. Let me
go up to him."

Dr. Deane's prescriptions usually conformed to the practice of his
day,--bleeding and big doses,--and he would undoubtedly have applied
both of these in Gilbert's case, but for the latter's great anxiety to
be in the saddle and on the hunt of his enemy. He stoutly refused to be
bled, and the Doctor had learned, from long observation, that patients