The Girl at Cobhurst | Page 6

dry macaroon, which has been soaking
in rum all this time, in the bottom of a glass saucer, you pile the flake
over it, and it's ready for him, except that sometimes you put in,--let me
see!--a little orange juice, I think, but I've got the recipe there in my
scrap-book, and I can find it in a minute." So saying, the old lady threw
aside the coverlid, and jumped to the floor with the activity of a cat.
Mrs. Tolbridge burst out laughing.
"I declare, Miss Panney!" she exclaimed, "you have your dress on."
"What of that?" said the old lady, opening a drawer. "A warm dress is a
good thing to wear, at least I have always found it so."
"But not with a night-cap," said the other.
"That depends on circumstances," said Miss Panney, turning over the
pages of a large scrap-book.
"And shoes," continued Mrs. Tolbridge, laughing again.
"Shoes," cried Miss Panney, pushing out one foot, and looking at it.
"Well, truly, that was an oversight; but here is the recipe;" and without
the aid of spectacles, she began to read. "It's exactly as I told you," she
said presently, "except that some people use sponge cake instead of
macaroons. The orange juice depends on individual taste. Shall I write
that out for you, or will you remember it?"
"Oh, I can remember it," said the other; "but tell me, Miss Panney--"
"Well, then," said the old lady, "make it for him, and see how he likes it.
There is one thing, Mrs. Tolbridge, that you should never forget, and

that is that the doctor is not only your husband, but the mainstay of the
community."
"Oh, I know that, and accept the responsibility; but you must tell me
why you are in bed with all your clothes on. I believe that you did not
expect the doctor so soon, and when you heard my knock, you clapped
on your night-cap and jumped into bed."
"Catherine," quietly remarked the old lady, "there is nothing so
discouraging to a doctor as to find a person who has sent for him out of
bed. If the patient is up and about, she mystifies him; he is apt to make
mistakes; he loses interest; he wonders if she couldn't come to him,
instead of his having to go to her; but when he finds the ailing person in
bed, the case is natural and straightforward; he feels at home, and
knows how to go to work. If you believe in a doctor, you ought to make
him believe in you. And if you are in bed, he will believe in you, and if
you are out of it, he is apt not to. More than that, Mrs. Tolbridge, there
is no greater compliment that you can pay to a physician you have sent
for, than to have him find you in bed."
The doctor's wife laughed. She thought, but she did not say so, that
probably this old lady had paid her husband a great many compliments.
"Well, Miss Panney," she said, rising, "what report shall I make?"
The old lady took off her night-cap, and replaced it with her ordinary
headgear of lace and ribbons.
"Have you heard anything," she asked, "of the young man who is
coming to Cobhurst?"
"No," said Mrs. Tolbridge, "nothing at all."
"Well," continued Miss Panney, "I think the doctor knows something
about him through old Butterwood. I have an idea that I know
something about him myself, but I wanted to talk to the doctor about
him. Of course this is a mere secondary matter. My back has been
troubling me a good deal lately, but as the doctor is so pushed, I won't

ask him to come here on purpose to see me. If he's in the neighborhood,
I shall be very glad to have him call. For the present, I shall try some of
the old liniments. Dear knows, I have enough of them, dating back for
years and years."
"But it will not do to make any mistakes, Miss Panney. Those old
prescriptions might not suit you now."
"Don't trouble yourself in the least about that," said the old lady, lifting
her hand impressively; "medicine never injures me. Not a drop of it do
I ever take inside of me, prescription or no prescription. But I don't
mind putting things on the outside of me--of course, I mean in reason,
for there are outside applications that would ruin the constitution of a
jack-screw."
There were very few people in the neighborhood of Thorbury who were
older than Miss Panney, and very few of any age who were as alert in
both mind and body. She had been born in this region; had left it in her
youth, and had returned about