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Doctor Courtlandt scarcely threw a glance on the
quiet, silent mansion, embowered in the many-colored foliage
of the bright fall. Yet that mansion had in its very
outward appearance and surroundings, much to indicate
to the quick, traveled eye of such a man as Doctor
Courtlandt, the character of its occupant. There was a
quiet elegance in every detail, in the neatly arranged yard
with its plats of autumn flowers—the marigold and late
primrose and wild-growing golden rod and aster—in the
tasteful garden with its gravel walks, in the white railing,
the vine-woven shutters, and plain wicker benches on the
portico. It was plain that this house was inhabited by a
woman or a man of extraordinary elegance and refinement.

The doctor rapidly approached the door, and let the
large bronze knocker fall upon the plate.

A servant came to the door.

“Miss Emberton,” said Doctor Courtlandt briefly, and
passing as he spoke into the drawing-room.

“She's sick, sir: she can't see any body.”

“Go and tell her that Doctor Courtlandt has come to
see her. I know your mistress is sick. Come, hasten!”

The servant—a neatly dressed girl—went out and almost
immediately returned, and said that her mistress
would see Doctor Courtlandt. The doctor entered the
sick chamber, and approached his patient.

Josephine Emberton scarcely resembled in any particular,
the merry young girl we have seen in her school

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days at Mrs. Courtlandt's. She was now more gentle,
more quiet, more feminine in all things, and her cheeks
had lost much of that healthful color which then ran riot
in them. True, this was no more than one might have
expected in a sick person, it may be said; but the patient
never wholly loses the characteristics of the same individual
when in health, and it was very plain that the gentle,
subdued woman who now lay wan and pale, but still
beautiful, before the physician, was not the little termagant
we have met with in her girlhood, full of mischief
and a very Beatrice with her tongue.

The messenger whom Doctor Courtlandt had stopped
riding post haste, had somewhat exaggerated his mistress's
sickness. It was not at all critical, but amply
sufficient to need the services of a physician. Doctor
Courtlandt very soon made his diagnosis of the malady,
and told Miss Emberton that she would be well in three
days.

She smiled faintly.

“You seem to be very confident, doctor. I confess I
was very much frightened,” she said, “but I was always
a coward on the sick bed; it is my great weakness.
When did you return, however? I had not heard of it.”

“To-day, madam,” said Doctor Courtlandt, “and I
had scarcely seen one of my friends when I heard of your
indisposition.”

“You were very kind—”

“To come and prescribe?”

“Yes.”

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

“It is plain you do not comprehend our code, madam,”
he replied. “To meet a servant galloping at full speed
for medical assistance—to be told that a patient is lying
dangerously ill—after this for a physician to shake his
head and say, `'Tis none of my business, but Dr. Blank's'—
it would be infamous.”

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“Jane frightened Cato very much, I suppose; she is a
good girl, and said what she thought, no doubt.”

“It would have been unpardonable in me to consult
my convenience at any time,” said Doctor Courtlandt, “if
you really needed me for any matter however slight. We
have been friends a long time. But you had better remain
quiet, madam. We may interchange our ideas very
well next week. Where is your brother? He should
not leave you.”

“He went to Bath last week. I have sent for him to
return, as I am alone here since my father's death, you
know.”

“Yes, madam, I was informed of it; your brother will
come back, then?”

“Yes; Robert loves me very much; and though he is
a great beau with the ladies—he is nineteen, nearly
twenty—he will hurry back, I know.”

“Well; I will now take my leave. Should you feel
nervous symptoms, take two spoonfuls of this—but only
until your physician comes. It will be for him then to
prescribe—different from myself, should it please him.”

And bowing, Doctor Courtlandt left the room, promising
to return on the next day.

He mounted his horse, and slowly took his way back
to the Lock, admiring the beautiful sunset and the splendid
autumn woods, which, like an army with a thousand
glittering spear points and many-colored banners, proudly
reared aloft, stood waiting for the wind's loud trumpetblast—
the signal for dire conflict with old winter. Every
where the leaves had warped and reddened, and a few,
become deep brown now, whirled from time to time from
the boughs to the thick carpet underneath the trees. The
whole landscape was softened, and much beautified by the
light haze of autumn drooping like a rosy cloud above
the mountains, as above the lowland; and Doctor Courtlandt
gazed upon the fair scene with pensive admiration.

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Then his thoughts, for a moment thrown back on his
past, returned to the patient he had just left.

“Ah,” he murmured, “what a wondrous thing is life!
how full of mysteries the simplest scene—the very lightest
matter! Men take no heed of the philosophic side of
life, lost as they are in a thousand absorbing pursuits of
love and glory, and mere money, very often—moreover
custom has staled all for them, but not for me! Yet I
may well doubt if this penetrating eye I arrogate to myself
is a blessing—any thing to felicitate myself upon!
Why should I curl my lip and say, `I am Sir Oracle'—
I am a profound thinker—you are only men? The lover
sighs and follows beauty like her shadow, and may well
be said to dream, since he is absorbed by his passion, and
lives in another world, above the earth—a grand empyrean
full of joy and splendor. He lives his life, though he
is a thousand times undone; though harshness, coldness,
and contempt remind him feelingly how much sad truth
those words, the `pangs of despised love' contain! He
lives his life, rapt for a time above the ground, in the
blue, joyful air of the mid-heaven—and though he falls,
and his poor heart is dashed to death upon the rocks of
hate—still he has all that glorious happy past! His heart
for a time has beat far faster than his race's—he has little
to complain of—there is in his woeful plight but little food
for philosophic scorn.

“And he too who rules, and breasts the flood of enmity
and eternal opposition in the high places of this world,
has little to complain of if the dark day comes, and he is
hurled from the full sunlight to oblivion. He has lived
his life; as he who toils for wealth, and satisfies his cravings,
and dies destitute after a long splendid glittering
career, has also in truth lived.

“They all have been absorbed in toil of the brain or
the heart, and have not slept a moment like the dull weed
which hugs itself at ease and slowly rots—contented,

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careless. Why then should I despise these men, and arrogate
to myself so much more lofty a philosophy, a brain so
much more free from mist and passion? I boast a cool,
calculating brain—seeing through all things, love and
ambition and all human passions, unmoved by any of
them!”

The Doctor's head fell mournfully on his breast; his
memories had overwhelmed him for the moment.

“I,” he murmured, “who have loved so much, and—
though I put on dissimulation like a mask—so profoundly
always! I jest at love, when so many dear dead ones
have wrung tears from my heart long years, until I thought
the very fountains of my soul were dry! God forgive me,
I am weaker and more arrogant than a petted and bepraised
child, who knowing nothing, thinks he has exhausted
all human erudition! I laugh at men for yielding
to their passions with my thirst for love and glory—though
now my heart is growing very cold; yes, very, very cold!

“Well, this perhaps explains my musings upon the
mysteries of life. The heart of the poor son was chilled
by the unearthly visitor, before he gave up all the joys of
youth, and love, and station, to moralize upon the skull
of the dead jester! Life was the mystery only after he
had seen the ghost; his heart was cold then—reason took
her throne; though but a poor brainsick reason.”

The Doctor went on slowly, gazing listlessly at the grand
landscape.

“Now who could have imagined that this beautiful
and well-proportioned nature would so change—though I
am, perhaps, wrong in thinking that the change is for the
worse. Who could recognize in the gentle, somewhat
apathetic woman lying yonder calmly and thoughtfully,
the sparkling child I danced with in my boyhood, jested
with, and so often encountered in wit-combats, when she
always drove me from the field! Who would imagine
that this glittering star which sparkled so brightly above

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my boyhood long ago, could have so changed! If I were
a poet,” the Doctor mused with a sad smile, “I might say
she shines upon the front of the fair past, like a bright
jewel on a lady's brow! What fire, what splendor,
what vivacity and wit! And now—it is most melancholy—
what an apathetic lip and eye and voice; so calm, so
spiritless, so changed in every thing.

“But all things change—a profound, but not an original
remark. All these leaves so gayly dancing in the
wind will soon be gone—they had their youth and ripeness;
now they grow old and change. Poor human nature—
it is melancholy! most melancholy! But one
word concludes and answers all,” the Doctor murmured,
“the word which has escaped with irresistible emphasis
from the lips of mightest conquerors, from the hearts of
the most subtle casuists when their last hour tolled in
their dull, hardened ears; the word which the poor dying
boaster and swash-buckler, overcome like his loftier
brothers, uttered, when dying he `babbled of green fields.'
One word elucidates the mystery, fixes the bourne of
thought—that word is `God!”'

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