Rutledge

est rainbow

ountains of

CK

from where I lay, there was a bridge and an embankment, perhaps thirty feet high. Between that and me, a horrid mass loomed up against the sky, black and shapeless, one car piled above another in an awful wreck. Dark figures lay around me on the ground, some writhing in agony, others motionless and rigid; groans and cries the most appalling smote my ear. But my ear and all my senses were so stunned and bewildered, that to se

e lantern glaring so suddenly in my face, was to make me start up, with some broken exclamation; but the words had hardly left my lips, when an acute pain and

me. Mr. Rutledge was sitting by me and was saying to the physician, whose entrance had, I think, first aroused me, that he considered me doing very

crowded with the sufferers, and I think your chance of comfort is as good here as it will be anywhere else; f

e expected to be visiting it so soon. But there are several servants in it, and it can quickly be made comfortable, and Mrs. Roberts, my housekeeper, is an excellent nurse. Don't you agree with me that any or all of these reasons are sufficient to make it wise to try t

ed innumerable objections to it, all of which he quietly put aside and overruled. It was easy to see who would carry the day; but the doctor did not give over for a long while. When at length he had been unwillingly b

," said Mr. Rutledg

and said, partly to himself, and partly to t

wn risk; it may d

nts to, I guess," remarked the woman, "and don'

, and Mr. Rutledge knows just enough of medicine to be confident of his own judgment. I only hope

gth, and in such alarmingly long words, that I was in danger of being frightened back into a high fever,

rtunate enough to engage would be at the door in about an hour and a half, and that he would not detain him any longer at present, but would recommend his taking a little rest, for he should be obliged to ask him to accompany his patient

y, darkened the windows, and throwing himself into an easy-chair, seemed inclined to set me the example. The lounge or settee on which I was placed, had been made as comfortable as the circumstances would permit, but still was pain

ble me seriously at the time, however. Dr. Sartain's opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, I was by no means injured by the ride, and when we drove under the gateway tha

arm in a sling, rushed back again wringing their hands, and displaying many symptoms of consternation. Mr. Rutledge in the mean time had entered the house, and soon appeared at the door accompanied by a tall, elderly woman, in a black bombazine dress, and a lace cap with white ribbons, to whom he was

, be best for me to go immediately up to her room, where I

I was entirely possessed of that belief from the first moment that I saw her. But I have since discovered that she invariably impressed all strangers with a similar conviction, and from that, and from subsequent knowledge of her character, I have concluded that it was merely "a way she had," and was by no means to be regarded

s, and crackling of fires, reached my indolent ears. Mrs. Roberts, standing before a huge open wardrobe, dealt out sheets, pillow-cases, towels, table-cloths and napkins to the maids, who bustled about with distressing activity, not unfrequently goaded on by a few sharp words from their mistress, who ruled them, I could see, with a rod of iron. The threat, however, that stirred up their flagging energies most effectually, seemed to be, the wrath of Mr. Rutledge. I began to feel myself drawn sympathizingly toward the maids, and could not help wondering whether they were as much afraid of the master, and as much averse t

he lighter because it was imaginary, nor none the easier to bear because it was absurd. Children's troubles and terrors are only less severe than those of maturer minds, as they are sho

y face hidden in the pillows, and, leaning over me, said in her

or a moment, then going to the

oing well. You had better

kets, raised myself and sat upright. I cried for a long while; every minute the prison feeling seemed to grow stronger, till at last it drove me to that climax of desperation which, in actual pris

l, with clenched hands, some wild plan of escape arranging itself in

the doctor; he's got through setting M

ollowed soon by Mr. Rutledge, who came, he said, to get the doctor's directions, and to see if Mrs. Roberts was doing every

me, said, "Not much sleep

ok my head. Mrs. Roberts, who did not probably notice the gesture,

oms); in the mean time he hoped he left me in safe hands (with a look direct at Mrs. Roberts). Mr. Rutledge smothered a smile, accompanied him to the door, and parted from him very courteously, then returned to me. He hoped, he said, that I did not mind trusting myself to him during the doctor's absence, and Mrs. Roberts would, he knew, take as good ca

ued, "I trust you will be perfectl

ght was too dreadful and bur

o now! I had rather go

g down beside me, in the doctor's vacated seat, s

ibly you may be able to go much sooner than the doctor thinks; only be patient a

ad and sobbed

you must try and be quiet and not cry, for that is the very worst thing for you

adfully,"

ave, and that is just what you must get rid of before you can be fit to start for home. You will

sleep!" I

you some powders that will make that a

lowed his advice and lay my hot and throbbing head on the pillow. He sat down again, and conti

any are rather dismal for sensitive nerves, it must be acknowledged," glancing with a smile around the apartment. "The room you are to have is on the other side of

on the whole, Kitty had better come and wait on you. Kitty is one of the maids, and is very pleasant, and I think you will like her. I will send her to you now. She will give you

pleasure to hear her clear young voice and to be served by her strong young arms. She must, I think, have had strict orders not to leave me; for after everything in the way of arranging the pillows and smoothing the blankets, and ad

d very soon suggested to her that she had better go downstairs to her work. Kitty said, "Yes ma'am," but didn't go. Again Mrs. Roberts suggested, and again Kitty cleverly evaded. The third time, the mistress laid down her work, and any one less stout-hearted than the young person befor

with the young lady, and to wait on her; and, also,

Umph" was all the rejoinder she made to this decisive speech. Kitty reas

ed upon considering me a perfectly helpless invalid, and would have carried me, if I had not remonstrated, and Mrs. Roberts had not sneered at the idea. As it was, she wrap

and proceeded with great satisfaction to do the honors. Wheeling toward me an easy-chair, an

were bigger and finer, there wasn't one that had such a sweet pretty loo

which was in itself a study, was an arabesque pattern of oak upon a light-blue ground. The slender vases on the mantel, the pictures in their carved oak frames, had an inexpressible charm for eyes so long accustomed to the bare walls and wooden presses of a boarding school dormitory. And even to a maturer taste, I think it would have been pleasing; for I do not remember ever to have seen a room more entirely in keeping, and in which there was less out of place and inharmon

hereof, I lay nestling in the soft depths of that marvellous Sleepy Hollow of a chair, that holding me lovingly in its capacious arms, seemed to perform every office of a good old n

atively ease and comfort; and to lie there, and look at the fire, and think about nothing, and speak to nobody,

back with her, quite compensated me for the self-denial I had had to exercise in letting her go. These edibles, Kitty, with all the pomp and circumstance of war, arranged upon the little table beside me, placing the tall wax candles in the centre, and distributing the diminutive pieces of the dainty little tête-à-tête set in the most advantageous manner. The tea tasted very nicely out of the thin china cup, that felt like a play-thin

he intruder. She again returned, however, on a final tour of inspection, after I was comfortably arranged in the fair white delicious bed, that seemed to be a special partner of tired nature's sweet restorer, who was good for any amount on its demand. She "poked in every corner" as Kitty expressed it, and found a dozen things to object to in her arrangements, pulled open drawers, and set Kitty poutingly at work to settle them properly, and made my temples

ed our brains for a long winter's nap." A nap not altogether uninterrupted on my part, by troubled dreams, and sudden starts, and foolish