CHAPTER LXXXII.

THE DOCTOR IS INTRODUCED, BY THE SMALL POX, TO HIS FUTURE WIFE.

Long-waiting love doth entrance find
Into the slow-believing mind.
                                           SYDNEY GODOLPHIN.

When Deborah was about nineteen, the small pox broke out in Doncaster, and soon spread over the surrounding country, occasioning every where a great mortality. At that time inoculation had very rarely been practised in the provinces; and the prejudice against it was so strong that Mr. Bacon though convinced in his own mind that the practice was not only lawful, but advisable, refrained from having his daughter inoculated till the disease appeared in his own parish. He had been induced to defer it during her childhood, partly because he was unwilling to offend the prejudices of his parishioners, which he hoped to overcome by persuasion and reasoning when time and opportunity might favour; still more because he thought it unjustifiable to introduce such a disease into his own house, with imminent risk of communicating it to others, which were otherwise in no danger, in which the same preparations would not be made, and where consequently the danger would be greater. But when the malady had shown itself in the parish, then he felt that his duty as a parent required him to take the best apparent means for the preservation of his child; and that as a pastor also it became him now in his own family to set an example to his parishioners.

Deborah, who had the most perfect reliance upon her father's judgement, and lived in entire accordance with his will in all things, readily consented; and seemed to regard the beneficial consequences of the experiment to others with hope, rather than to look with apprehension to it for herself. Mr. Bacon therefore went to Doncaster and called upon Dr. Dove. “I do not,” said he, “ask whether you would advise me to have my daughter inoculated; where so great a risk is to be incurred, in the case of an only child, you might hesitate to advise it. But if you see nothing in her present state of health, or in her constitutional tendencies, which would render it more than ordinarily dangerous, it is her own wish and mine, after due consideration on my part, that she should be committed to your care,—putting our trust in Providence.”

Hitherto there had been no acquaintance between Mr. Bacon and the Doctor, farther than that they knew each other by sight and by good report. This circumstance led to a growing intimacy. During the course of his attendance the Doctor fell in friendship with the father, and the father with him.

“Did he fall in love with his patient?”

“No, ladies.”

You have already heard that he once fell in love, and how it happened. And you have also been informed that he caught love once, though I have not told you how, because it would have led me into too melancholy a tale. In this case he neither fell in love, nor caught it, nor ran into it, nor walked into it; nor was he overtaken in it, as a boon companion is in liquor, or a runaway in his flight. Yet there was love between the parties at last, and it was love for love, to the heart's content of both. How this came to pass will be related at the proper time and in the proper place.

For here let me set before the judicious Reader certain pertinent remarks by the pious and well known author of a popular treatise upon the Right Use of Reason,—a treatise which has been much read to little purpose. That author observes that “those writers and speakers, whose chief business is to amuse or delight, to allure, terrify or persuade mankind, do not confine themselves to any natural order, but in a cryptical or hidden method, adapt every thing to their designed ends. Sometimes they omit those things which might injure their design, or grow tedious to their hearers, though they seem to have a necessary relation to the point in hand: sometimes they add those things which have no great reference to the subject, but are suited to allure or refresh the mind and the ear. They dilate sometimes, and flourish long upon little incidents; and they skip over, and but lightly touch the drier part of the theme.—They omit things essential which are not beautiful; they insert little needless circumstances and beautiful digressions; they invert times and actions, in order to place every thing in the most affecting light;—they place the first things last, and the last things first with wonderous art; and yet so manage it as to conceal their artifice, and lead the senses and passions of their hearers into a pleasing and powerful captivity.”