Geoffrey Strong | Page 5

were usually considered the most exclusive and
"stand-offish" people in Elmerton. He made no secret of being in love
with Miss Vesta. He declared that no one could see her without being
in love with her. "Because you are so lovely, you know!" he said to her
half a dozen times a day. The remark never failed to call up a soft blush,
and a gentle "Don't, I pray you, my dear young friend; you shock me!"
"But I like to shock you," the young doctor would reply. "You look
prettiest when you are shocked." And then Miss Vesta would shake her
pretty white curls (she was not more than sixty, but her hair had been
gray since her youth), and say that if he went on so she must really call
Sister Phoebe; and Master Geoffrey would go off laughing.
He did not make love to Miss Phoebe, but was none the less intimate
with her in frank comradeship. Rheumatism was their first bond.
Doctor Strong meant to make rather a specialty of rheumatism and
kindred complaints, and studied Miss Phoebe's case with ardour. Every
new symptom was received with kindling eye and eager questionings.
It was worst in her back this morning? So! now how would she

describe the pain? Was it acute, darting, piercing? No? Dull, then!
Would she call it grinding, boring, pressing? Ah! that was most
interesting. And for other symptoms--yes! yes! that naturally followed;
he should have expected that.
"In fact, Miss Blyth, you really are a magnificent case!" and the young
doctor glowed with enthusiasm. (This was when he first came to live in
the Temple of Vesta.) "I mean to relieve your suffering; I'll put every
inch there is of me into it. But, meantime, there ought to be some
consolation in the knowledge that you are a most beautiful and
interesting case."
What woman,--I will go farther,--what human being could withstand
this? Miss Phoebe was a firm woman, but she was clay in the hands of
the young doctor,--the more so that he certainly did help her
rheumatism wonderfully.
More than this, their views ran together in other directions. Both
disapproved of matrimony, not in the abstract, but in the concrete and
personal view. They had long talks together on the subject, after Miss
Vesta had gone to bed, sitting in the quaint parlour, which both
considered the pleasantest room in the world. The young doctor, tongs
in hand (he was allowed to pick up the brands and to poke the fire, a
fire only less sacred than that of Miss Vesta's lamp), would hold forth
at length, to the great edification of Miss Phoebe, as she sat by her little
work-table knitting complacently.
"It's all right for most men," he would say. "It steadies them, and does
them good in a hundred ways. Oh, yes, I approve highly of marriage, as
I am sure you do, Miss Blyth; but not for a physician, at least a young
physician. A young physician must be able to give his whole thought,
his whole being, so to speak, to his profession. There's too much of it
for him to divide himself up. Why, take a single specialty; take
rheumatism. If I gave my lifetime, or twenty lifetimes, to the study of
that one malady, I should not begin to learn the A B C of it."
"One learns a good deal when one has it!" said poor Miss Phoebe.
"Yes, of course, and I am speaking the simple truth when I say that I
wish I could have it for you, Miss Blyth. I should have--it would be
most instructive, most illuminating. Some day we shall have all that
regulated, and medical students will go through courses of disease as
well as of study. I look forward to that, though it will hardly come in

my time. Rheumatism and kindred diseases, say two terms; fever, two
terms--no, three, for you would want to take in yellow and typhus, as
well as ordinary typhoid. Cholera--well, of course there would be
difficulties, but you see the principle. Well, but we were talking about
marriage. Now, you see, with all these new worlds opening before him,
the physician cannot possibly be thinking of falling in love--"
Miss Phoebe blinked, and coloured slightly. She sometimes wished
Doctor Strong would not use such forcible language.
"Of falling in love and marrying. In common justice to his wife, he has
no business to marry her; I mean, of course, the person who might be
his wife. Up all night, driving about the country all day,-- no woman
ought to be asked to share such a life. In fact, the one reason that might
justify a physician in marrying--and I admit it might be a powerful
one--would be where it afforded special