Heart and Science | Page 4

ever of lace? and as keen
as ever after a bargain?" He handed a card out of the carriage window.
"I have just seen an old patient of mine," he resumed, "in whom I feel a
friendly interest. She is retiring from business by my advice; and she
asks me, of all the people in the world, to help her in getting rid of
some wonderful 'remnants,' at 'an alarming sacrifice!' My kind regards
to your mother--and there's a chance for her. One last word, Ovid.
Don't be in too great a hurry to return to work; you have plenty of spare
time before you. Look at my wise dog here, on the front seat, and learn
from him to be idle and happy."
The great physician had another companion, besides his dog. A friend,
bound his way, had accepted a seat in the carriage. "Who is that
handsome young man?" the friend asked as they drove away.

"He is the only son of a relative of mine, dead many years since," Sir
Richard replied. "Don't forget that you have seen him."
"May I ask why?"
"He has not yet reached the prime of life; and he is on the way--already
far on the way--to be one of the foremost men of his time. With a
private fortune, he has worked as few surgeons work who have their
bread to get by their profession. The money comes from his late father.
His mother has married again. The second husband is a lazy, harmless
old fellow, named Gallilee; possessed of one small attraction--fifty
thousand pounds, grubbed up in trade. There are two little daughters,
by the second marriage. With such a stepfather as I have described, and,
between ourselves, with a mother who has rather more than her fair
share of the jealous, envious, and money-loving propensities of
humanity, my friend Ovid is not diverted by family influences from the
close pursuit of his profession. You will tell me, he may marry. Well! if
he gets a good wife she will be a circumstance in his favour. But, so far
as I know, he is not that sort of man. Cooler, a deal cooler, with women
than I am--though I am old enough to be his father. Let us get back to
his professional prospects. You heard him ask me about a patient?"
"Yes."
"Very good. Death was knocking hard at that patient's door, when I
called Ovid into consultation with myself and with two other doctors
who differed with me. It was one of the very rare cases in which the old
practice of bleeding was, to my mind, the only treatment to pursue. I
never told him that this was the point in dispute between me and the
other men--and they said nothing, on their side, at my express request.
He took his time to examine and think; and he saw the chance of saving
the patient by venturing on the use of the lancet as plainly as I did--with
my forty years' experience to teach me! A young man with that
capacity for discovering the remote cause of disease, and with that
superiority to the trammels of routine in applying the treatment, has no
common medical career before him. His holiday will set his health right
in next to no time. I see nothing in his way, at present--not even a
woman! But," said Sir Richard, with the explanatory wink of one eye

peculiar (like quotation from Shakespeare) to persons of the obsolete
old time, "we know better than to forecast the weather if a petticoat
influence appears on the horizon. One prediction, however, I do risk. If
his mother buys any of that lace--I know who will get the best of the
bargain!"
The conditions under which the old doctor was willing to assume the
character of a prophet never occurred. Ovid remembered that he was
going away on a long voyage--and Ovid was a good son. He bought
some of the lace, as a present to his mother at parting; and, most
assuredly, he got the worst of the bargain.
His shortest way back to the straight course, from which he had
deviated in making his purchase, led him into a by-street, near the
flower and fruit market of Covent Garden. Here he met with the second
in number of the circumstances which attended his walk. He found
himself encountered by an intolerably filthy smell.
The market was not out of the direct way to Lincoln's Inn Fields. He
fled from the smell to the flowery and fruity perfumes of Covent
Garden, and completed the disinfecting process by means of a basket of
strawberries.
Why did a poor ragged little girl, carrying a big baby, look with such
longing eyes at the delicious fruit, that, as a kind-hearted