Hanchett had married, at an early stage in his original career, the only daughter of a bankrupt Vicksburg storekeeper.  This young woman, who had doubtless found ample opportunity for the practice of domestic economy in the paternal home, soon proved herself to be a most excellent housekeeper on her own account.  She was a jewel indeed to her improvident husband, who, finding that she made shift by one means or another to keep the family larder supplied, whether he kept her purse supplied or not, dismissed a great care from his mind at once and for ever, and thenceforth to the end of his days never exerted himself beyond his natural bent.  As the daughter, Dora Hanchett, grew to womanhood, she divided her mother’s burden with her, and ultimately, as the mother’s health failed, relieved her of it almost entirely.

The family once reunited and domiciled in their new home, it soon became evident to the most casual observer that Dora exercised the functions of commander-in-chief of that force, and that the doctor, notwithstanding his brilliant record in the field, had been incontinently reduced to the ranks, and subjected to a rather rigid discipline.  Let it not be inferred, however, that Dora ruled with a high hand or with a rod of iron.  Far from it.  She was the quietest and meekest of tyrants, controlling not by conscious will or effort, but by divine commission, as many a woman does.

Not only was Dora the head of the household in the sense of directing its internal affairs, but she likewise soon proved herself to be its mainstay as bread-winner.  The doctor under her hands became a dignified and not unornamental figure-head to the concern, in whom she took a certain filial pride.  His banner was still allowed to hang upon the outer wall, and, as some slight justification of the legend borne upon it, the semblance of an office was maintained for him, where he spent many solitary and irksome hours daily in the semblance of professional study and work.  But his income did not amount even to a semblance, and upon Dora, therefore, devolved the task of maintaining the cuisine as well as the character of the establishment.  She had been accustomed to this duty indeed ever since, upon becoming a schoolteacher at the age of sixteen, she had proved her capacity to perform it.  She early found her place in the public schools of Clarksville, and so the pot was soon boiling merrily, and the demands of the doctor’s magnificent appetite were duly honored at sight.

Thus, Doctor Hanchett was enabled to live a life of elegant leisure, devoid of care and fruitful of enjoyment to a man of his temperament, for some fourteen months.  Then he was suddenly smitten with the “gold fever,” and went raging through the town, seeking whom he might infect.  It was one of the curiosities of this singular epidemic that it claimed not only those youthful and adventurous spirits who were by common consent held to be its legitimate victims, but carried off also old and infirm men, chronic invalids, and, stranger still, such shiftless, incompetent and altogether worthless cumberers of the ground as this Doctor Hanchett; thus proving itself to be, like most other contagions, a not entirely unmixed evil.