Doctor Luttrells First Patient | Page 7

better days.
When Olivia's foot sounded on the stairs, a tall, hard-featured woman
came out of the kitchen.
"I knew it was you," she said. "Come in. My mistress is just wearying
for you. She never sleeps in daylight, and it is ill-reading and working
in the fading light. I will soon have the tea ready. I have been baking
some scones."
Olivia sniffed the warm perfume delightedly. She was hungry, oh, so
hungry! although two hours had not elapsed since dinner-time, and
Deb's scones, with sweet, fresh country butter, was ambrosial food.
"Don't let Deb keep you with her chatter, come ben, my woman, as my
poor Fergus would have said."
The voice was peculiarly youthful and melodious, the timbre exquisite
in modulation and volume, but the face belonged to a woman aged
more by pain and trouble than years.
Madge Broderick had never been a handsome woman, her nose was too
long, and her skin too sallow for beauty, but her bright eyes and a
certain gracefulness of figure, and her beautiful voice had been her
charms. Fergus Broderick, a rough Scotchman, with a tongue as
uncouth as his native dales, had fallen in love with her at their first
meeting; he had been invited to dine at the house of the senior partner,
in whose employ he was, and as the awkward, bashful young
Scotchman entered the firelit room, a clear laugh from amongst a group
of girls gathered round the hearth penetrated like music to his ear.
"Parting is such sweet sorrow," said the voice, with much pathos, "that

I could say good-bye until the morrow; those are your sentiments, Katie,
are they not?"
"Hush, Madge! here is Mr. Broderick waiting for us to speak to him,"
and the daughter of the house rose with a laugh to greet him.
When the lamps were lighted Fergus Broderick had scanned all the
girlish faces with furtive eagerness. He had felt a shock of
disappointment when the owner of the exquisite voice had revealed her
identity. Madge's long nose and sallow skin were no beauties certainly;
nevertheless, before the evening was over, Fergus Broderick knew he
had found his mate; and for eight blissful years Madge dwelt in her
woman's kingdom, and gathered more roses than thorns.
Her first trouble had been the loss of her boy; he had succumbed to
some childish ailment; her husband's death--the result of an
accident--had followed a few months later.
The strain of the long nursing and excessive grief had broken down
Madge Broderick's strength. The seeds of an unsuspected disease latent
in her system now showed itself, and for some two or three years her
sufferings, both mental and physical, would have killed most women.
Then came alleviation and the lull that resembles peace; the pain was
no longer so acute; the disease had reached a stage when there would
be days and even weeks of tolerable comfort; then Madge courageously
set herself to make the most of her life.
With a courage that was almost heroic, she divided and subdivided the
hours of each day--so many duties, so many hours of recreation. She
had her charity work, her fancy work, her heavy and light reading;
books and flowers were her luxuries; the newest books, the sweetest
flowers, were always to be found on the table beside her couch.
Madge often said laughingly that she lived in a world of her own. "But
I have very good society," she would add; "the best and wisest of all
ages give me their company. This morning I was listening to Plato's
Dialogues, and this afternoon Sir Edwin Arnold was entertaining me at

the Maple Club in Tokio. This evening--well, please do not think me
frivolous, but affairs at Rome and a certain Prince Saracinesca claim
my attention.
"A good novel puts me in a better humour and disposes me to sleep,
you know," she would finish, brightly, "that I always read aloud to
Fergus in the evening; we were going through a course of
Thackeray--we were in the middle of 'Philip on his way through the
world' when the accident happened. After that he could only bear a few
verses or a psalm."
CHAPTER III.
AUNT MADGE.
"It is more delightful and more honourable to give than
receive."--Epicurus.
Most people thought it a strange thing that Mrs. Broderick spoke so
constantly of her husband. Mrs. Tolman, the Vicar's wife, who was a
frequent visitor, had been scandalised more than once, and had
expressed herself rather strongly on the subject to her husband.
"I know you think very highly of poor Mrs. Broderick, Stephen, and so
do I," she remarked one day. "Very few women would bear things in
that quiet, uncomplaining way, and the amount of work she gets
through is astonishing; but that perpetual