The Atlantic Monthly, page 29 by Various Authors
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ddy, and had a great noise in her ears, and rolled her eyes about, and was on the point of going into an hysteric spasm. They called Dr. Hurlbut, who was making himself agreeable to Olive just then, to come and see what was the matter with Myrtle.
"A little nervous turn,--that is all," he said. "Open the window. Loose the ribbon round her neck. Rub her hands. Sprinkle some water on her forehead. A few drops of cologne. Room too warm for her,--that's all, I think."
Myrtle came to herself after a time without anything like a regular paroxysm. But she was excitable, and whatever the cause of the disturbance may have been, it seemed prudent that she should go home early; and the excellent Rector insisted on caring for her, much to the discontent of Mr. William Murray Bradshaw.
"Demonish odd," said this gentleman, "wasn't it, Mr. Lindsay, that Miss Hazard should go off in that way? Did you ever see her before?"
"I--I--have seen that young lady before," Clement answered.
"Where did you meet her?" Mr. Bradshaw asked, with eager interest.
"I met her in the Valley of the Shadow of Death," Clement answered, very solemnly.--"I leave this place to-morrow morning. Have you any commands for the city?"
("Knows how to shut a fellow up pretty well for a young one, doesn't he?" Mr. Bradshaw thought to himself.)
"Thank you, no," he answered, recovering himself. "Rather a melancholy place to make acquaintance in, I should think, that Valley you spoke of. I should like to know about it."
Mr. Clement had the power of looking steadily into another person's eyes in a way that was by no means encouraging to curiosity or favorable to the process of cross-examination. Mr. Bradshaw was not disposed to press his question in the face of the calm, repressive look the young man gave him.
"If he wasn't bagged, I shouldn't like the shape of things any too well," he said to himself.
The conversation between Mr. Clement Lindsay and Miss Susan Posey, as they walked home tog