Part 33 (1/2)
”I certainly agree to come. It will be my first real entrance into Boston society; but as for dancing, that's quite another thing; I gave that up years ago.”
”Why, man alive!” exclaimed Mr. Berkley; ”any one would think, to hear you talk sometimes, you were a perfect Methuselah! Here, Marion!” he cried, calling her in from the other room, ”I want you to give Dr.
Drayton private lessons in dancing, so that he will be able to get through the 'German' at your party.”
”I am much obliged to Miss Marion,” said Dr. Drayton, quietly; ”but it is too late for me to begin now; I must decline her services.”
”Perhaps it would be as well if you waited until I offered them,”
replied Marion, haughtily, piqued at the coolness of his manner. ”I certainly had no intentions of becoming a dancing-mistress for you or any one else!”
The doctor made no reply, but Mr. Berkley laughed aloud, as he exclaimed: ”Look here, Marion, that Thornton has spoiled you! You are so used to having him consider it an honor to be allowed to pick up your handkerchief, that you begin to think that every one else must do the same.”
”Papa, how unkind!” said Marion, flus.h.i.+ng to the roots of her hair; ”I don't know as Mr. Thornton ever picked up my handkerchief in his life, and he wouldn't be so foolish as to consider it an honor if he had.”
”No?” replied her father, in the most provoking way; ”but there,--you shan't be teased any more! Just turn round, and smile sweetly on the doctor, and tell him you don't think he's too old to come to your party, and you'll let him, if he'll promise to be a good boy.”
”I don't care whether he comes or not,” cried Marion, struggling to get away from her father.
”If that is the case,” said Dr. Drayton, ”I shall certainly come, simply for my own amus.e.m.e.nt. I didn't know but my presence might be particularly disagreeable to you; but as you seem so thoroughly indifferent, I shall come, and look on with the other old folks.”
Marion bit her lips, and said nothing; but as her father still held her hand, so that she could not get away, she seated herself on the arm of his chair with her face turned towards the fire.
”Doctor,” said Mr. Berkley, ”why don't you shave off that beard? It makes you look five years older than you are.”
”That is my mask,” replied the doctor, stroking his beard with his right hand; ”I could not part with it.”
”What, in the name of sense, do you want of a mask?”
”Unluckily for me, my mouth is the telltale feature of my face. I found, when I first became a surgeon, that my patients could tell by its expression whether they were to live or die; so I covered it up with this beard. After I had been at the hospital several years, and had seen sights that the very telling of them would make you shudder; when I performed operation after operation without flinching, or even having the slightest feeling of repugnance, I thought I must have got my mouth under perfect control, and so ventured to trim my mustache and shave my beard. That very morning I had to attend a poor fellow who had had his leg amputated the day before; during the examination I never looked at him, for I felt his eyes were fixed on my face. Suddenly he exclaimed: 'It's no use, doctor; you can keep your eyes down, but you can't hide your mouth,--that says death.' It was the truth; mortification had set in, and he died the next morning. After that I let my beard grow, and so long as I remain a surgeon, which I shall so long as my hand is steady enough to guide the knife, it will stay as it is.”
”Well, I think you are right,” said Mr. Berkley; ”but by and by, when you get a wife, perhaps she will think differently, and the beard, and the profession too, may have to go. The last, I hear, pays you nothing.”
”If ever I get a wife,” replied Dr. Drayton, ”she will probably think as I do,--that, as I have been blessed with more than an ample fortune, I should be a heartless wretch, if I did not devote my skill to the relief of the suffering poor.”
Marion, who had listened silently to the above conversation, finding her father had released his hold of her hand, slipped quietly away.
The weeks flew past, and the eventful day, when Marion was to make her debut into fas.h.i.+onable society, at last arrived.
Rachel, of course, would not go to the party, as she was still in deep mourning; but Florence was to stay all night with Marion, and Rachel went round early with her uncle, that she might see her two friends in the full splendor of their first ball-dresses. She went directly to the drawing-room, where she heard the voices of the girls, leaving her uncle to find his way to the dressing-room.
”Hands off these two pieces of dry-goods!” cried Fred, who was capering round his sister and Florence, in a perfect state of delight, and all the glories of his first dress-coat, when Rachel entered the room. ”You may admire as much as you please; but you can't touch 'em with a ten-foot pole.”
”Get out of the way, Fred,” said Marion, putting him aside as she went forward to meet Rachel; ”she shall touch me as much as she pleases. How do you like it, Rachel? Is it just the thing?”
”I should say it certainly was!” exclaimed Rachel, enthusiastically. ”I never saw anything so lovely in my life; and you two look so pretty together!”
”You see our dresses are made just alike,” said Florence, b.u.t.toning her gloves; ”only my flowers are pink, and hers white.”
The two girls certainly did look lovely. Their dresses were of white tarlatan, puffed and ruffled sufficiently to be quite a la mode, but still so light and delicate as to give them a floating, airy appearance, and not make them look like exaggerated fas.h.i.+on-plates. Marion's was caught, here and there, with white daisies and delicate gra.s.ses, a wreath of the same in her hair; while Florence's was trimmed with pink roses and buds.