BEFOOLED.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2423, 21 January 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

BEFOOLED.

TiiEiiE is no creature on earth half eo vain and full of assurance as a young physician, on whose diploma the ink is scarcely dry, but who has been so fortunate as to secure a few patients. There have been intervals of self-distrust, of alternate hope and fear, but these have vanished like the proverbial mist at dawn, under the sunny halo of it case.

I was just in the condition above described at the time of which 1 will tell you. My landlady's little daughter had been safely brought through a severe attack of croup by my skilful attention and tho practical promptness of her experienced grandmother. I had, with the aid of old Dr. Benson, set tho arm of the butcher's boy next door, and had treated a hypochondriacal old woman, on a back street, for neuralgia, and that was doing very well, I opined, considering that I had come a stranger to Hehuetviilo, that new town which had grown swiftly up with the ficshly-openeci mines of Helmet Mountain. My father was wealthy, so I was not dependent for my bread on the desultory first, year's practice, and I had my hiiucUomuly-furuished office, with my modest sleeping apartment opening out of it, and very good fare. Aud then, ono day, my office bell rang, and a lady came in—young, striking-looking, and dressed with quite elegance. "She was a remarkably healthy - looking young woman," 1 should have said, had I met her anywhere but in a doctor's office asking for a prescription. When I knew she was Adelaide Carhurt, daughter ol the richest man in the town, my profeS-iona! vanity received such a pleasurable shock that it took me mouths to recover from it. Why had she not consulted her father's family physician, old Dr. Benson ? Strangely enough, I did not attribute her coining to me to any personal chiirm I possessed, but laid it entirely to some rumour of my great, professional acumen. She began by asking me to feel her pulse, and held out to mo a wrist so soft, so round and so white that the very touch of it was fee enough for the most poverty-stricken of medicos, but I was determined not to be moved by anything so emotional as a pretty arm, aud gravely noted her temperature and the velocity of her pulse. They wero not normal. I knew enough from my limited experience to discern that. It was accelerated greatly beyond its natural swiftness, and was uneven, being sometimes full and anon slender.

She gave me a certain number of symptons, and I was surprised at the conciseness with which nbo ran them over, more as a physician would have done, and with none of "the garrulity which usually makes a woman's speech when retailing her ills to her doctor. Her words and phrases, too, were quite professional, and had shebeen a medical student she could not have diagnosed a clearer case of organic disease of tlio heart. I tried to reassure her, but let escape me in a most unprofessional way, for which I afterward blamed myself, that, she did havo a clear case of heart disease ; then, with subtle art, strove to conviuce her that it might bo cured if she would put herself entirely under my direction. This she promised to do, but as time went on, though I gave her treatment formulated by the best authorities on that disease, .she reported symptoms of the worst character. 1 became very much in love with her, aud studied her case early and late, neglecting all else. I felt little hope, however, as she ppoko of her coming death as a near inevitability with the greatest composure. Strange to say, she gradually improved in spirits, however, and seemed to forget that she had prophesied her own demise, but the report of symptoms during the intervals between her calls grew more and more serious.

Finally I became so bewildered and alarmed at her condition that I threw myself on the mercy of Dr. Benson, in whom I had great faith. 1 told him my dilemma, and not him to go to the house in a casual way and talk with her, touch her hands, note her symptons, and tell me what he thought. Of course this was not at all professional, but he was goodnatured and indulgent of the airs of young physicians, and promised to do as 1 desired. But lie gave me a piwee of information which filled me with melancholy. Miss Carhart, he said, was engaged to be married to a millionaire cousin of hers, living in Philadelphia, to whom she was ardently attached, and the engagement had been announced some three months previous to my eomiug to Helmetville.

"With the exception of a slight nervousness and some general debility, Miss Carhart is a perfectly healthy girl, and has no small trace of heart disease about he,", said the doctor, on his return. 1 was "dumbfounded, and with the usual arrogance of young disciples of Galen, 1 forthwith made up my mind that IJenson was a fool. Had not I discovered her abnormal circulation, and had she not detailed to me the most minute symptoms of heart malady? " Miss Carhart is the deepest, longest-headed, brightest woman I ever saw," said Dr. Benson, ono morning, stepping abruptly into my office. "You better marry her."

I was amazed, for I deemed her the most ingenuous girl I had ever known. And the next day she came to my office, and I put my arm around her and said boldly • "Adelaide, I want you for my wife." She smiled, then she cried a little, then she said : " Are yon sure you are in earnest V I made her understand bow greatly I meant what I said, and then she lifted her lips to mine in ii way that made me foreet any dreams of Paradise in the certainty of a future so much sweeter and resting her blonde head on my shoulder, said : "I have a confession to make you. In the first place you have saved my life and are welcome to it. T was engaged to my cousin, aud was quite fond of him, and proud of the match I was to make. It was announced in all the papers, and he deliberately threw me over for some milk-and-water belle be mot at Capo

May. My love (such as it was) and my vanity were so hurt that I determined I would not live to see the triumph of my rival. Unworthy you will think, but human, and I have more pride than anything elso in my make-up. 1 determined to feign heart disease, and to that end got a pathological work and studied symptoms till I could give a perfect diagnosis of my case, and took such drugs, each time I came to see you, as should temporarily afifect my circulation and the working of my heart. I came to you because I knew you were young, and I was sure I could fool you." (This was not flattering to my vanity, but I didn't mind it.) She went on : " After I had convinced you I was really ill, I had determined to kill myself by some painless poison. You would have testified to my diseased condition, thus saving the exposure of :\n antopcy, and I should have been spared the ignominy of desertion from my dastardly lover, who had promised to wait three months before he married the belle. But you have defeated all my schemes," she added, archly, "by malpractice, In trying to cure one disease of the heart you have given me another, which will probably follow me to the grave." And Benson stood sponsor for our first boy. Medora Clakke. San Francisco, October 22nd, 1537.