He was in Elsie’s room almost before she knew he was in the house.  He came to her bedside in such a natural, quiet way, that it seemed as if he were only a friend who had dropped in for a moment to say a pleasant word.  Yet he was very uneasy about Elsie until he had seen her; he never knew what might happen to her or those about her, and came prepared for the worst.

“Sick, my child?” he said, in a very soft, low voice.

Elsie nodded, without speaking.

The Doctor took her hand,—­whether with professional views, or only in a friendly way, it would have been hard to tell.  So he sat a few minutes, looking at her all the time with a kind of fatherly interest, but with it all noting how she lay, how she breathed, her color, her expression, all that teaches the practised eye so much without a single question being asked.  He saw she was in suffering, and said presently,—­

“You have pain somewhere; where is it?”

She put her hand to her head.

As she was not disposed to talk, he watched her for a while, questioned Old Sophy shrewdly a few minutes, and so made up his mind as to the probable cause of disturbance and the proper means to be used.

Some very silly people thought the old Doctor did not believe in medicine, because he gave less than certain poor half-taught creatures in the smaller neighboring towns, who took advantage of people’s sickness to disgust and disturb them with all manner of ill-smelling and ill-behaving drugs.  To tell the truth, he hated to give any thing noxious or loathsome to those who were uncomfortable enough already, unless he was very sure it would do good,—­in which case, he never played with drugs, but gave good, honest, efficient doses.  Sometimes he lost a family of the more boorish sort, because they did not think they got their money’s worth out of him, unless they had something more than a taste of everything he carried in his saddle-bags.

He ordered some remedies which he thought would relieve Elsie, and left her, saying he would call the next day, hoping to find her better.  But the next day came, and the next, and still Elsie was on her bed,—­feverish, restless, wakeful, silent.  At night she tossed about and wandered, and it became at length apparent that there was a settled attack, something like what they called formerly a “nervous fever.”

On the fourth day she was more restless than common.  One of the women of the house came in to help to take care of her; but she showed an aversion to her presence.

“Send me Helen Darley,” she said at last.

The old Doctor told them, that, if possible, they must indulge this fancy of hers.  The caprices of sick people were never to be despised, least of all of such persons as Elsie, when rendered irritable and exacting by pain and weakness.

So a message was sent to Mr. Silas Peckham, at the Apollinean Institute, to know if he could not spare Miss Helen Darley for a few days, if required to give her attention to a young lady who attended his school and who was now lying ill,—­no other person than the daughter of Dudley Venner.