for some hysteric fits that will make mischief.  Take that handkerchief off of her head, and cut her hair close, and keep her temples cool, and put some drawing plasters to the soles of her feet, and give her some of my pilulae compositae, and follow them with some doses of sal polychrest.  I’ve been through it all before—­in that same house.  Live folks are only dead folks warmed over.  I can see ’em all in that girl’s face, Handsome Judith, to begin with.  And that queer woman, the Deacon’s mother,—­there ’s where she gets that hystericky look.  Yes, and the black-eyed woman with the Indian blood in her,—­look out for that,—­look out for that.  And—­and—­my son, do you remember Major Gideon Withers?” [Ob. 1780.]

“Why no, father, I can’t say that I remember the Major; but I know the picture very well.  Does she remind you of him?”

He paused again, until the thoughts came slowly straggling, up to the point where the question left him.  He shook his head solemnly, and turned his dim eyes on his son’s face.

Four generations—­four generations; man and wife,—­yes, five generations, for old Selah Withers took me in his arms when I was a child, and called me ‘little gal,’ for I was in girl’s clothes,—­five generations before this Hazard child I ’ve looked on with these old eyes.  And it seems to me that I can see something of almost every one of ’em in this child’s face, it’s the forehead of this one, and it’s the eyes of that one, and it’s that other’s mouth, and the look that I remember in another, and when she speaks, why, I’ve heard that same voice before—­yes, yes as long ago as when I was first married; for I remember Rachel used to think I praised Handsome Judith’s voice more than it deserved,—­and her face too, for that matter.  You remember Rachel, my first wife,—­don’t you, Fordyce?”

“No, father, I don’t remember her, but I know her portrait.” (As he was the son of the old Doctor’s second wife, he could hardly be expected to remember her predecessor.)

The old Doctor’s sagacity was not in fault about the somewhat threatening aspect of Myrtle’s condition.  His directions were followed implicitly; for with the exception of the fact of sluggishness rather than loss of memory, and of that confusion of dates which in slighter degrees is often felt as early as middle-life, and increases in most persons from year to year, his mind was still penetrating, and his advice almost as trustworthy, as in his best days.

It was very fortunate that the old Doctor ordered Myrtle’s hair to be cut, and Miss Silence took the scissors and trimmed it at once.  So, whenever she got well and was seen about, there would be no mystery about the loss of her locks,—­the Doctor had been afraid of brain fever, and ordered them to cut her hair.