We all sat at supper on Thursday evening. There was a general air of expectation. It was on this evening that Prof. Poppendorf was to give his lecture. We all gazed at him with more than ordinary interest. The old Professor, gray and grim-visaged, sat more than usually erect, and his manner and bearing were marked by unusual dignity. He felt himself to be the hero of the hour.
I have neglected to say that Mrs. Wyman had been transferred to the seat adjoining mine. As she could not do without masculine attention I suspect that this arrangement was prompted by herself. Henceforth I was favored with the greater part of her conversation.
"I am quite looking forward to Prof. Poppendorf's lecture!" she said. "You are going, are you not?"
"I think so, but I can't say I am looking forward to it. I fancy it will be dry and difficult to understand."
"You think he is a learned man, do you not?"
"Very probably—in certain directions."
"Dr. Fenwick, I am going to ask a favor of you."
"I hope it isn't money," thought I, "for I was beginning to have some anxiety about my steadily dwindling bank account."
"Name it, Mrs. Wyman," I said, somewhat nervously.
"I am almost ashamed to say it, but I don't like to go to the lecture alone. Would you mind giving me your escort?"
"With pleasure," I answered.
My answer was not quite truthful, for I had intended to ask the young woman from Macy's to accompany me. She was not intellectual, but she had a fresh, country face and complexion; she came from Pomfret, Connecticut, and was at least ten years younger than Mrs. Wyman. But what could I say? I had not the moral courage to refuse a lady.
"Thank you very much. Now I shall look forward to the evening with pleasure."
"You are complimentary. Do you expect to understand the lecture?"
"I don't know. I never gave much thought to the 'Material and Immaterial.'"
"Possibly we may understand as much about the subject as the Professor himself."
"Oh, how severe you are! Now I have great faith in the Professor's learning."
"He ought to be learned. He certainly has no physical beauty."
Mrs. Wyman laughed.
"I suppose few learned men are handsome," she said.
"Then perhaps I may console myself for having so little learning. Do you think the same rule holds good with ladies?"
"To a certain extent. I am sure the principal of the seminary I attended was frightfully plain; but I am sure she was learned. Prof. Poppendorf, have you sold many lecture tickets?"
"Quite a few!" answered the Professor, vaguely.
"Are you going to attend the lecture, Miss Blagden?" asked the widow.
"Miss Canby and I have agreed to go together."
Miss Canby was the young woman from Macy's. The Disagreeable Woman finding that she wished to attend the lecture, offered her a ticket and her company, both being thankfully accepted. So that after all my escort was not needed by the young woman, and I lost nothing by my attention to the widow.
We did not rise from the table till seven o'clock. Mrs. Wyman excused herself for a short time. She wished to dress for the lecture. The gentlemen withdrew to the reception room, a small and very narrow room on one side of the hall, and waited for the ladies to appear. Among those who seated themselves there was the Disagreeable Woman. She waited for the appearance of the young woman from Macy's, whom she was to accompany to the lecture. Somehow she did not seem out of place in the assemblage of men.
"You did not at first propose to hear Prof. Poppendorf?" I remarked.
"No; I shall not enjoy it. But I found Miss Canby wished to attend."
"We shall probably know a good deal more about the Material and the Immaterial when we return."
"Possibly we shall know as much as the Professor himself," she answered, quietly.
"I am afraid you are no hero worshiper, Miss Blagden."
"Do you refer to the Professor as a hero?"
"He is the hero of this evening."
"Perhaps so. We will see."
Prof. Poppendorf looked into the reception room previous to leaving the house. He wore a long coat, or surtout, as it used to be called—tightly buttoned around his spare figure. There was a rose in his buttonhole. I had never seen one there before, but then this was a special occasion. He seemed in good spirits, as one on the eve of a triumph. He was content with one comprehensive glance. Then he opened the front door, and went out.
Just then Mrs. Wyman tripped into the room, closely followed by Ruth Canby. The widow was quite radiant. I can't undertake to itemize her splendor. She looked like a social butterfly.
Quite in contrast with her was the young woman from Macy's, whose garb was almost Quaker-like in its simplicity. Mrs. Wyman surveyed her with a contemptuous glance, and no doubt mentally contrasted her plainness with her own showy apparel. But the Disagreeable Woman's eye seemed to rest approvingly on her young companion. They started out ahead of the rest of us.
"What a very plain person Miss Canby is!" said the widow, as we emerged into the street, her arm resting lightly in mine.
"Do you refer to her dress or her face and figure?"
"Well, to both."
"She dresses plainly; but I suspect that is dictated by economy. She has a pleasant face."
"It is the face of a peasant."
"I didn't know there were any peasants in America."
"Well, you understand what I mean. She looks like a country girl."
"Perhaps so, but is that an objection?"
"Few country girls are stylish."
"I don't myself care so much for style as for good health and a good heart."
"Really, Dr. Fenwick, your ideas are very old-fashioned. In that respect you resemble my dear, departed husband."
"Is it permitted to ask whether your husband has long been dead?"
"I have been a widow six years," said Mrs. Wyman, with an ostentatious sigh. "I was quite a girl when my dear husband died."
According to her own chronology, she was twenty-three. In all probability she became a widow at twenty-nine or thirty. But of course I could not insinuate any doubt of a lady's word.
"And you have never been tempted to marry again?" I essayed with great lack of prudence.
"Oh, Dr. Fenwick, do you think it would be right?" said the widow, leaning more heavily on my arm.
"If you should meet one who was congenial to you. I don't know why not."
"I have always thought that if I ever married again I would select a professional gentleman," murmured the widow.
I began to understand my danger and tried a diversion.
"I don't know if you would consider Prof. Poppendorf a 'professional gentleman'," I said.
"Oh, how horrid! Who would marry such an old fossil?"
"It is well that the Professor does not hear you."
Perhaps this conversation is hardly worth recording, but it throws some light on the character of the widow. Moreover it satisfied me that should I desire to marry her there would be no violent opposition on her part. But, truth to tell, I would have preferred the young woman from Macy's, despite the criticism of Mrs. Wyman. One was artificial, the other was natural.
We reached Schiller Hall, after a long walk. It was a small hall, looking something like a college recitation room.
Prof. Poppendorf took his place behind a desk on the platform and looked about him. There were scarcely a hundred persons, all told, in the audience. The men, as a general thing, were shabbily dressed, and elderly. There were perhaps twenty women, with whom dress was a secondary consideration.
"Did you ever see such frights, Doctor?" whispered the widow.
"You are the only stylishly dressed woman in the hall."
Mrs. Wyman looked gratified.
The Professor commenced a long and rather incomprehensible talk, in which the words material and immaterial occurred at frequent intervals. There may have been some in the audience who understood him, but I was not one of them.
"Do you understand him?" I asked the widow.
"Not wholly," she answered, guardedly.
I was forced to smile, for she looked quite bewildered.
The Professor closed thus: "Thus you will see, my friends, that much that we call material is immaterial, while per contra, that which is usually called immaterial is material."
"A very satisfactory conclusion," I remarked, turning to the widow.
"Quite so," she answered, vaguely.
"I thank you for your attention, my friends," said the Professor, with a bow.
There was faint applause, in which I assisted.
The Professor looked gratified, and we all rose and quietly left the hall. I walked out behind Miss Canby and the Disagreeable Woman.
"How did you like the lecture, Miss Blagden?" I inquired.
"Probably as much as you did," she answered, dryly.
"What do you think of the Professor, now?"
"He seems to know a good deal that isn't worth knowing."
One afternoon between five and six o'clock I was passing the Star Theatre, when I overtook the Disagreeable Woman.
I had only exchanged a few remarks with her at the table, and scarcely felt acquainted. I greeted her, however, and waited with some curiosity to see what she would have to say to me.
"Dr. Fenwick, I believe?" she said.
"Yes; are you on your way to supper?"
"I am. Have you had a busy day?"
As she said this she looked at me sharply.
"I have had two patients, Miss Blagden. I am a young physician, and not well known yet. I advance slowly."
"You have practised in the country?"
"Yes."
"Pardon me, but would it not have been better to remain there, where you were known, than to come to a large city where you are as one of the sands of the sea?"
"I sometimes ask myself that question, but as yet I am unprepared with an answer. I am ambitious, and the city offers a much larger field."
"With a plenty of laborers already here."
"Yes."
"I suppose you have confidence in yourself?"
Again she eyed me sharply.
"Yes and no. I have a fair professional training, and this gives me some confidence. But sometimes, it would be greater if I had an extensive practise, I feel baffled, and shrink from the responsibility that a physician always assumes."
"I am glad to hear you say so," she remarked, approvingly. "Modesty is becoming in any profession. Do you feel encouraged by your success thus far?"
"I am gaining, but my progress seems slow. I have not yet reached the point when I am self-supporting."
She looked at me thoughtfully.
"Of course you would not have established yourself here if you had not a reserve fund to fall back upon? But perhaps I am showing too much curiosity."
"No, I do not regard it as curiosity, only as a kind interest in my welfare."
"You judge me right."
"I brought with me a few hundred dollars, Miss Blagden—what was left to me from the legacy of a good aunt—but I have already used a quarter of it, and every month it grows less."
"I feel an interest in young men—I am free to say this without any fear of being misunderstood, being an old woman—"
"An old woman?"
"Well, I am more than twenty-nine."
We both smiled, for this was the age that Mrs. Wyman owned up to.
"At any rate," she resumed, "I am considerably older than you. I will admit, Dr. Fenwick, that I am not a blind believer in the medical profession. There are some, even of those who have achieved a certain measure of success, whom I look upon as solemn pretenders."
"Yet if you were quite ill you would call in a physician?"
"Yes. I am not quite foolish enough to undertake to doctor myself in a serious illness. But I would repose unquestioning faith in no one, however eminent."
"I don't think we shall disagree on that point. A physician understands his own limitations better than any outsider."
"Come, I think you will do," she said, pleasantly. "If I am ill at any time I shall probably call you in."
"Thank you."
"And I should criticise your treatment. If you gave me any bread pills, I should probably detect the imposture."
"I should prefer, as a patient, bread pills to many that are prescribed."
"You seem to be a sensible man, Dr. Fenwick. I shall hope to have other opportunities of conversing with you. Let me know from time to time how you are succeeding."
"Thank you. I am glad you are sufficiently interested in me to make the request."
By this time we had reached the boarding-house. We could see Mrs. Wyman at the window of the reception room. She was evidently surprised and amused to see us together. I was sure that I should hear more of it, and I was not mistaken.
"Oh, Dr. Fenwick," she said playfully, as she took a seat beside me at the table. "I caught you that time."
"I don't understand you," I said, innocently.
"Oh, yes, you do. Didn't I see you and Miss Blagden coming in together?"
"Yes."
"I thought you would confess. Did you have a pleasant walk?"
"It was only from the Star Theatre."
"I see you are beginning to apologize. You could say a good deal between Waverley Place and the Star Theatre."
"We did."
"So I thought. I suppose you were discussing your fellow boarders, including poor me."
"Not at all."
"Then my name was not mentioned?"
"Yes, I believe you were referred to."
"What did she say about me?" inquired the widow, eagerly.
"Only that she was older than you."
"Mercy, I should think she was. Why, she's forty if she's a day. Don't you think so?"
"I am no judge of ladies' ages."
"I am glad you are not. Not that I am sensitive about my own. I am perfectly willing to own that I am twenty seven."
"I thought you said twenty-nine, the other evening?"
"True, I am twenty-nine, but I said twenty-seven to see if you would remember. I suppose gentlemen are never sensitive about their ages."
"I don't know. I am twenty-six, and wish I were thirty-six."
"Mercy, what a strange wish! How can you possibly wish that you were older."
"Because I could make a larger income. It is all very well to be a young minister, but a young doctor does not inspire confidence."
"I am sure I would rather call in a young doctor unless I were very sick."
"There it is! Unless you were very sick."
"But even then," said the widow, coquettishly, "I am sure I should feel confidence in you, Dr. Fenwick. You wouldn't prescribe very nasty pills, would you?"
"I would order bread pills, if I thought they would answer the purpose."
"That would be nice. But you haven't answered my question. What were you and Miss Blagden talking about?"
"About doctors; she hasn't much faith in men of my profession."
"Or of any other, I fancy. What do you think of her?"
"That is a leading question, Mrs. Wyman; I haven't thought very much about her so far, I have thought more of you."
"Oh, you naughty flatterer!" said the widow, graciously. "Not that I believe you. Men are such deceivers."
"Do ladies never deceive?"
"You ought to have been a lawyer, you ask such pointed questions. Really, Dr. Fenwick, I am quite afraid of you."
"There's no occasion. I am quite harmless, I do assure you. The time to be afraid of me is when you call me in as a physician."
"Excuse me, doctor, but Mrs. Gray is about to make an announcement."
We both turned our glances upon the landlady.
Mrs. Gray was a lady of the old school. She was the widow of a merchant supposed to be rich, and in the days of her magnificence had lived in a large mansion on Fourteenth Street, and kept her carriage. When her husband died suddenly of apoplexy his fortune melted away, and she found herself possessed of expensive tastes, and a pittance of two thousand dollars.
She was practical, however, and with a part of her money bought an old established boarding-house on Waverley Place. This she had conducted for ten years, and it yielded her a good income. Her two thousand dollars had become ten, and her future was secure.
Mrs. Gray did not class herself among boarding-house keepers. Her boarders she regarded as her family, and she felt a personal interest in each and all. When they became too deeply in arrears, they received a quiet hint, and dropped out of the pleasant home circle. But this did not happen very often.
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