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TITLE: GEOFFREY STRONG
AUTHOR: LAURA E. RICHARDS
EBOOK: E06638 (O'Briens Book Cellar)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

GEOFFREY STRONG

By

Laura E. Richards

Author of

"Captain January," "Melody," "Marie," etc.

  TO
  Richard Sullivan,
  KINDEST OF UNCLES, FRIENDS, AND CRITICS,
  THIS STORY IS AFFECTIONATELY
  DEDICATED

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

   I. THE TEMPLE OF VESTA

  II. THE YOUNG DOCTOR

 III. GARDEN FANCIES

  IV. MOSTLY PROFESSIONAL

   V. LETTER-WRITING AND HYSTERICS

  VI. INFORMATION

 VII. FESTIVITY

VIII. REVELATION

  IX. SIDE LIGHTS

   X. OVER THE WAY

  XI. BROKEN BONES

 XII. CONVALESCENCE

XIII. RECOVERY

ILLUSTRATIONS.

He paddled on in silence

The young doctor glancing around saw all these things.

He stood looking at her, his hand still on the hammock rope.

"There he comes, full chisel!" cried Ithuriel Butters.

CHAPTER I.

THE TEMPLE OF VESTA

"That's a pleasant looking house," said the young doctor. "What's
the matter with my getting taken in there?"

The old doctor checked his horse, and looked at the house with a
smile.

"Nothing in the world," he said, "except the small fact that they
wouldn't take you."

"Why not?" asked the young man, vivaciously. "Too rich? too proud?
too young? too old? what's the matter with them?"

The old doctor laughed outright this time. "You young firebrand!" he
said. "Do you think you are going to take this village by storm?
That house is the Temple of Vesta. It is inhabited by the Vestal
Virgins, who tend the sacred fire, and do other things beside. You
might as well ask to be taken into the meeting-house to board."

"This is more attractive than the meetinghouse," said the young
doctor. "This is one of the most attractive houses I ever saw."

He looked at it earnestly, and as they drove along the elm-shaded
street, he turned in his seat to look at it again.

It certainly was an attractive house. Its front of bright clean red
brick was perhaps too near the street; but the garden, whose tall
lilac and syringa bushes waved over the top of the high wall, must,
he thought, run back some way, and from the west windows there must
be a glorious sea-view.

The house looked both genteel and benevolent. The white stone steps
and window-sills and the white fan over the door gave a certain
effect of clean linen that was singularly pleasing. The young doctor,
unlike Doctor Johnson, had a passion for clean linen. The knocker,
too, was of the graceful long oval shape he liked, and burnished to
the last point of perfection, and the shining windows were so placed
as to give an air of cheerful interrogation to the whole.

"I like that house!" said the young doctor again. "Tell me about the
people!"

Again the old doctor laughed. "I tell you they are the Vestal Virgins!"
he repeated. "There are two of them, Miss Phoebe and Miss Vesta Blyth.
Miss Phoebe is as good as gold, but something of a man-hater. She
doesn't think much of the sex in general, but she is a good friend
of mine, and she'll be good to you for my sake. Miss Vesta"--the
young doctor, who was observant, noted a slight change in his hearty
voice--"Vesta Blyth is a saint."

"What kind of saint? invalid? bedridden? blind?"

"No, no, no! saints don't all have to be bedridden. Vesta is a--you
might call her Saint Placidia. Her life has been shadowed. She was
once engaged--to a very worthy young man--thirty years ago. The day
before the wedding he was drowned; sailboat capsized in a squall,
just in the bay here. Since then she keeps a light burning in the
back hall, looking over the water. That's why I call the house the
Temple of Vesta."

"Day and night?"

"No, no! lights it at sunset every evening regularly. Sun dips,
Vesta lights her lamp. Pretty? I think so."

"Affecting, certainly!" said the young doctor. "And she has mourned
her lover ever since?"

The old doctor gave him a quaint look. "People don't mourn thirty
years," he said, "unless their minds are diseased. Women mourn
longer than men, of course, but ten years would be a long limit,
even for a woman. Memory, of course, may last as long as life--sacred
and tender memory,"--his voice dropped a little, and he passed his
hand across his forehead,--"but not mourning. Vesta is a little
pensive, a little silent; more habit than anything else now. A sweet
woman; the sweetest--"

The old doctor seemed to forget his companion, and flicked the old
brown horse pensively, as they jogged along, saying no more.

The young doctor waited a little before he put his next question.

"The two ladies live alone always?"

"Yes--no!" said the old doctor, coming out of his reverie. "There's
Diploma Crotty, help, tyrant, governor-in-chief of the kitchen. Now
and then she thinks they'd better have a visitor, and tells them so;
but not very often, it upsets her kitchen. But here we are at the
parsonage, and I'll take you in."

The young doctor made his visit at the parsonage dutifully and
carefully. He meant to make a good impression wherever he went. It
was no such easy matter to take the place of the old doctor, who,
after a lifetime of faithful and loving work, had been ordered off
for a year's rest and travel; but the young doctor had plenty of
courage, and meant to do his best. He answered evasively the inquiry
of the minister's wife as to where he meant to board; and though he
noted down carefully the addresses she gave him of nice motherly
women who would keep his things in order, and have an eye to him in
case he should be ailing, he did not intend to trouble these good
ladies if he could help himself.

"I want to live in that brick house!" he said to himself. "I'll have
a try for it, anyhow. The old ladies can't be insulted by my telling
them they have the best house in the village."

After dinner he went for a walk, and strolled along the pleasant
shady street. There were many good houses, for Elmerton was an old
village. Vessels had come into her harbour in bygone days, and
substantial merchant captains had built the comfortable, roomy
mansions which stretched their ample fronts under the drooping elms,
while their back windows looked out over the sea, breaking at the
very foot of their garden walls. But there was no house that compared,
in the young doctor's mind, with the Temple of Vesta. He was walking
slowly past it, admiring the delicate tracery on the white
window-sills, when the door opened, and a lady came out. The young
doctor observed her as she came down the steps; it was his habit to
observe everything. The lady was past sixty, tall and erect, and
walked stiffly.

"Rheumatic!" said the young doctor, and ran over in his mind certain
remedies which he had found effective in rheumatism.

She was dressed in sober gray silk, made in the fashion of thirty
years before, and carried an ancient parasol with a deep silk fringe.
As she reached the sidewalk she dropped her handkerchief. Standing
still a moment, she regarded it with grave displeasure, then tried
to take it up on the point of her parasol. In an instant the young
doctor had crossed the street, picked up the handkerchief, and
offered it to her with a bow and a pleasant smile.

"I thank you, sir!" said Miss Phoebe Blyth. "You are extremely
obliging."

"Don't mention it, please!" said the young doctor. "It was a pleasure.
Have I the honour of speaking to Miss Blyth? I am Doctor Strong.
Doctor Stedman may have spoken to you of me."

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