Dr. Breen's Practice

d it stretches the vast forest, which after two hundred years has resumed the sterile coast wrested from it by the first Pilgrim

Jocelyn's remains. The beach at the foot of the bluff is almost a mile at its curve, and it is so smooth and hard that it glistens like polished marble when newly washed by the tide. It is true that you reach it from the top by a flight of eighty steps, but it was intended to have an elevator, like those near the Whirlpool at Niagara. In the mean time it is easy enough to go down, and the ladies go down every day, taking their novels or their needle-work with them. They have various notions of a bath: some conceive that it is bathing to sit in the edge of the water, and emit shrieks as the surge sweeps against them; others run boldly in, and after a moment of poignant hesitation jump up and down half-a-dozen times, and run out; yet others imagine it better to remain immersed to the chin for a given space, looking toward the shore with lips tightly shut and the breath held. But after the bath they are all of one mind; they lay their shawls on the warm sand, and, spreading out their hair to dry, they doze in the su

t at present his house is visited once a day by a barge, as the New England coast-folks call the vehicle in which they convey city boarders to and from the station, and the old frequenters of the place hope that the station will never be nearer Jocelyn's than at present. Some of them are rich enough to afford a sojourn at more fashionable resorts; but most of them are not, though they are often people of polite tastes and of aesthetic employments. They talk with slight of the large watering-places, and probably they would not

by a partition of unlathed studding. The arrest of development in these shells is characteristic of everything about the place. None of the improvements invented since the hard times began have been added to Jocelyn's; lawntennis is still unknown there; but there is a croquet-ground before the hotel, where the short, tough grass is kept in tolerable order. The wickets are pretty rusty, and it

ouise," panted the player; "it

e as if to answer, but en

ught to have put on your shawl!" She lifted the knit shawl lying beside her on the

ith a pretty petulance. "If my chest's protected, that's all that's necessary." But she made no motion to drape the o

leaded, lingering near her. "I was wrong to le

tired out. I'm not going to take more cold. I can always tell whe

what Dr. Nixon always said: he said it was no use in air so long as my mind preyed upon itself. He said that I ought

perfectl

starts my mind to preying upon itself; and when it gets going once I can't stop i

irl, and now when she frowned her black brows met sternly above her gray eyes. But she c

barge comes in. I suppose it will be as empty as a gourd, as usual." She added, with a

r tea. I'll wander out that way and look for

met it on her way to the place in the woods where the children usually played, and found it as empty as her friend had foreboded. But the driver stopped his horses, and l

-like sweetness and a sort

driver, "this is for M

on; and the driver yielded it with a blush that reddened him to his hair. "Well," he said slowly, staring at the handsome girl, who did not v

explained, and walked rapidly away, leaving the dr

k round the side of the wagon for a sight of her. "Well, dumm 'f I don't wish I was sick

the time. Though the particulars of the case do not directly concern this story, it may be stated that the recreant lover afterwards married her dearest girl-friend, whom he had first met in her company. It was cruel enough, and the hurt went deep; but it neither crushed nor hardened her. It benumbed her for a time; she sank out of sight; but when she returned to the knowledge of the world she showed no mark of the blow except what was thought a strange eccentricity in a girl such as she had been. The world which had known her-it was that of an inland New England city-heard of her definitely after several years as a student of medicine in

ough not that she would have chosen; but her mother, after a fortnight, openly repined, and could not mention Mrs. Maynard without some rebellious murmur. She was an old lady, who had once kept a very vigilant conscience for herself; but after making her life unhappy with it for some threescore years, she now applied it entirely to the exasperation and condemnation of others. She especially devoted it to fretting a New England girl's naturally morbid sense of duty in her daughter, and keeping it in the irritation of perpetual self-question. She had never actively opposed her studying medicine; that ambition had harmonized very well with certain radical tendencies of her own, and it was at least not marriage, which she had found tolerable only in its modified form of widowhood; but at every step after the decisive step was taken she was beset with misgivings lest Grace was not fully alive to the grave responsibilities of her office, which she accumulated upon the girl in proportion as she flung off all responsibili

that she had chosen her course. At the same time that she held these sane opinions, she believed that she had put away the hopes with the pleasures that might once have taken her as a young girl. In regard to what had changed the current of her life, she mentally asserted her mere nullity, her absolute non-existence. The thought of it no longer rankled, and that interest could never be hers again. If it had not been so much like affectation,

whose gay blue eyes looked out of a sunburnt face, and whose straw hat, carried in his hand, exposed a closely shaven head. He wore a suit of gray flannel, and Mrs. Maynard explained that he wa

me?" The child put her left hand on that of Grace holding her right, and prettily pressed her head against the girl's arm in ba

your doctor?" he scarce

when I came East, this time, I just went right straight to her house. I knew she could tell me exactly what to do. And that's the reason I'm here. I shall always recommend this air to a

stare in the direction Grace had taken, with a frank l

urse, and went to her own room, where she

Maynard?" ask

et-ground," answe

would be damp," s

ea-bell rings. She wouldn't

erson who lets her doctor pay her boa

t speak of that, mot

t's ridiculous,-that's wha

anything unless he chooses, or she; and if I choose to make Louise

t," said Mrs. Green. "I don't see wha

I don't see how she could have a better claim. Even if she were quite well I should consider the way

o behave herself," s

t do you mean?" demanded

ht to be more circumspect than any other woman, if she wa

as she can be. I know that she's impulsive, and she's free in her manners with strangers; but I suppose that's her We

a with h

ise is talking with a gentleman who came over on the steamer with her;

ne hand and Grace the other, and they led her down to tea. Mrs. Maynard

tly after she returned home from school she married, in that casual and tentative fashion in which so many marriages seem made. Grace had heard of her as travelling in Europe with her husband, from whom she was now separated. She reported that he had known Mr. Libby in his bachelor days, and that Mr. Libby had travelled with them. Mr. Maynard appeared to have left to Mr. Libby the arrangement of his wife's pleasures, the supervis

ittle one's bedside, for Bella had

nder-tone, as she came in. She kissed Grace, and

his is shameful! You forget that

st as dry! And you needn't mind Mr. Libby. He's such

vorced woman, you oughtn

te different with Mr. Libby. And, besides, I hav