As I have said, I never saw a more beautiful countenance or one more
subdued to settled quiet. "Ailie," said James, "this is Maister John,
the young doctor; Rab's freend, ye ken. We often speak aboot you,
doctor." She smiled, and made a movement, but said nothing; and prepared
to come down, putting her plaid aside and rising. Had Solomon, in all
his glory, been handing down the Queen of Sheba at his palace gate he
could not have done it more daintily, more tenderly, more like a
gentleman, than did James the Howgate carrier, when he lifted down Ailie
his wife. The contrast of his small, swarthy, weather-beaten, keen,
worldly face to hers--pale, subdued, and beautiful--was something
wonderful. Rab looked on concerned and puzzled, but ready for anything
that might turn up--were it to strangle the nurse, the porter, or even
me. Ailie and he seemed great friends.
"As I was sayin' she's got a kind o' trouble in her breest, doctor;
wull ye tak' a look at it?" We walked into the consulting-room, all
four; Rab grim and comic, willing to be happy and confidential if
cause could be shown, willing also to be the reverse, on the same
terms. Ailie sat down, undid her open gown and her lawn handkerchief
round her neck, and without a word, showed me her right breast. I
looked at and examined it carefully--she and James watching me, and
Rab eyeing all three. What could I say? there it was, that had once
been so soft, so shapely, so white, so gracious and bountiful, so
"full of all blessed conditions,"--hard as a stone, a centre of horrid
pain, making that pale face with its gray, lucid, reasonable eyes, and
its sweet resolved mouth, express the full measure of suffering
overcome.
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