After A Shadow and Other Stories | Page 4

to
examine my husband's eyes. Thank God, there is no fear at present of
my poor William losing his sight, provided he can be prevailed on to
attend rigidly to the medical instructions for preserving it. These
instructions, which forbid him to exercise his profession for the next six
months at least, are, in our case, very hard to follow. They will but too
probably sentence us to poverty, perhaps to actual want; but they must
be borne resignedly, and even thankfully, seeing that my husband's
forced cessation from work will save him from the dreadful affliction
of loss of sight. I think I can answer for my own cheerfulness and
endurance, now that we know the worst. Can I answer for our children
also? Surely I can, when there are only two of them. It is a sad
confession to make, but now, for the first time since my marriage, I feel
thankful that we have no more.
17th.--A dread came over me last night, after I had comforted William
as well as I could about the future, and had heard him fall off to sleep,
that the doctor had not told us the worst. Medical men do sometimes
deceive their patients, from what has always seemed to me to be
misdirected kindness of heart. The mere suspicion that I had been

trifled with on the subject of my husband's illness, caused me such
uneasiness, that I made an excuse to get out, and went in secret to the
doctor. Fortunately, I found him at home, and in three words I
confessed to him the object of my visit.
He smiled, and said I might make myself easy; he had told us the worst.
"And that worst," I said, to make certain, "is, that for the next six
months my husband must allow his eyes to have the most perfect
repose?"
"Exactly," the doctor answered. "Mind, I don't say that he may not
dispense with his green shade, indoors, for an hour or two at a time, as
the inflammation gets subdued. But I do most positively repeat that he
must not employ his eyes. He must not touch a brush or pencil; he must
not think of taking another likeness, on any consideration whatever, for
the next six months. His persisting in finishing those two portraits, at
the time when his eyes first began to fail, was the real cause of all the
bad symptoms that we have had to combat ever since. I warned him (if
you remember, Mrs. Kerby?) when he first came to practice in our
neighborhood."
"I know you did, sir," I replied. "But what was a poor traveling
portrait-painter like my husband, who lives by taking likenesses first in
one place and then in another, to do? Our bread depended on his using
his eyes, at the very time when you warned him to let them have a
rest."
"Have you no other resources? No money but the money Mr. Kerby
can get by portrait-painting?" asked the doctor.
"None," I answered, with a sinking at my heart as I thought of his bill
for medical attendance.
"Will you pardon me?" he said, coloring and looking a little uneasy, "or,
rather, will you ascribe it to the friendly interest I feel in you, if I ask
whether Mr. Kerby realizes a comfortable income by the practice of his
profession? Don't," he went on anxiously, before I could reply--"pray

don't think I make this inquiry from a motive of impertinent curiosity!"
I felt quite satisfied that he could have no improper motive for asking
the question, and so answered it at once plainly and truly.
"My husband makes but a small income," I said. "Famous London
portrait-painters get great prices from their sitters; but poor unknown
artists, who only travel about the country, are obliged to work hard and
be contented with very small gains. After we have paid all that we owe
here, I am afraid we shall have little enough left to retire on, when we
take refuge in some cheaper place."
"In that case," said the good doctor (I am so glad and proud to
remember that I always liked him from the first!), "in that case, don't
make yourself anxious about my bill when you are thinking of clearing
off your debts here. I can afford to wait till Mr. Kerby's eyes are well
again, and I shall then ask him for a likeness of my little daughter. By
that arrangement we are sure to be both quits, and both perfectly
satisfied."
He considerately shook hands and bade me farewell before I could say
half the grateful words to him that were on my lips. Never, never shall I
forget that he relieved me of my two heaviest anxieties at the most
anxious