detested him, and I tried as much as possible to
avoid coming into contact with him. I had
determined to resist and resent any indignity
offered me, and yet I wished to avoid a quarrel,
because I loved his dear pretty little daughter
Olga. I was, moreover, on the morning of
which I speak, tired out both in mind and body;
for I had been up the greater part of the night
attending patients in a state of collapse from
the terrible epidemic which was devastating the
Russian capital. On my way to my own room
to snatch an hour or two of sleep, I had stopped
at Dr. Tillmann's door to deliver my official
report. At that moment I would rather have
been digging graves, tired as I was, than have
confronted that intolerable old martinet, whom
nothing could propitiate, and from whom no
exertion of mine could extort a word of praise.

At last, I knocked in a quick business-like
way. There was a muttering, but no one
answered. I knocked again. "Come in!"
snapped out the doctor, in his dry mechanical
voice. I entered. There he sat, as he had
sat every morning for seven-and-twenty years
at the same hour, the great brass tower
of a samovar boiling before him, and the teapot
mounted above the burning charcoal on the little
brazier stand. Before him lay the Journal de
St. Petersburg, which he, a little nankeen-
coloured man in the blue official coat and brass
buttons, was conning with a contemptuous air.
Opposite sat Olga at the open window, for
it was April time, teasing and feeding an old
green and crimson parrot. It was a scene just
such as De Hooge loved to paint. The sunshine
fell in blanched light on one side of the snowy
tablecloth, and in slant golden squares upon the
marqueterie of the floor. I bowed to her and
to the implacable doctor.

"Well, sir," said he, "your report."

I was about to hand it, when he said: " Read
it."

I read it. "April 14, 1832. Number of
patients received since yesterday: In the Peter
ward, eighty-three; in the Catherine ward,
seventy-five; in the Romanoff ward, ninety-two.
Died during the night, forty-three."

"Oh, father, father, how terrible," cried the
doctor's daughter; "Heaven has, indeed, sent
the destroying angel among us. Do the poor
people suffer much, Mr. Campbell? Oh, can I be
of any use? Do you think if I went to the
wards I could encourage the nurses?"

Even I had never before seen Olga look so
beautiful as she did then, when a high and
generous impulse was stirring her heart to
good.

"Miss Tillmann," I replied, "you must not
expose yourself to danger. The nurses are zealous.
They understand the people, and can bear these
scenes of horror better than you could."

"Olga, attend to your parrot," said the old
pedant, harshly; "practise your music; your
master comes at eleven."

"I am afraid, sir," I said, "the opium and
calomel treatment does not save more than a
third of our patients. Those who have been
brought in this morning have been nearly all in
a state of collapse, from which it has been, in
most cases, impossible to recover them."

"A mere phase of the disease," said Dr. Tillmann;
"that will soon pass away. Continue
the opium and the calomel. We must have no
absurd innovations in the Petro-Paulovsky
Hospital. By-the-by," said he (a mischievous malice
twinkling in his little beady eyes), "here is a
letter in the Journal to-day puffing up some new
Persian anti-cholera drug the Sumbul, or
jumble, or some such absurd name: a musk-root,
that brings the dead to life, according to an
Englishman's account. I really think these
foreign quacks are getting more impudent than
ever." (Here he suddenly twisted round in his
chair, and fixed his weasel eyes on me.) "Mr.
Campbell, did you insert that letter?"

The blood rose to my face, and my cheek
was turning red, as I replied, indignantly:

"No, sir, I did not insert that letter; nor
will I endure, even from you, the name of
foreign quack."

I am sure the angry tone in which I replied
must have given pain to Miss Tillmann, for she
bent down to the parrot, and I could see the
colour rise to her cheek.

Nothing could move the doctor. "O, I only
asked," he said. "No offence; but I know
young men take up these new-fangled fancies.
The third house-surgeon before you was mad
about mesmerism, and was angry with me for
ridiculing it. We had high words; a word of
mine to the government, and his name was
struck off the staff. Take a seat while I go
into the next room and put on my other coat.
I will then go round the wards with you."

All this time the insolent old disciplinarian
had kept me standing, as if I had been a servant.

I bowed, and took a seat. I was too proud
to plead fatigue and so escape the odious duty
imposed upon me by this narrow-minded fossil
of a bygone regime. I had not dared to tell
him that the letter he had questioned me about,
though not inserted by me, was really my
composition, and had probably been sent to the
Journal by some imprudent and officious friend.
It recorded some convincing proofs of the
efficacy of the mysterious Persian musk-root.

As the inner door closed on the doctor, Olga's
pale anxious face turned round towards me
with a half-sorrowful recognition that she had
not dared hitherto to accord me. I advanced
towards her and raised her hand to my lips.

"Dear Mr. Campbell," she said, "I thank
you from my heart for bearing with my father's
harsh caprices. I know how hard it is for your
high spirit to endure these indignities. I hear
there is danger; do tell me if it is true. I
know you would not tell my father."

"Olga," I said, "this pestilence is not the
worst danger we have to encounter. We hear
this morning from the carters who bring the
sick, that there is a belief spreading among the
peasants that we are poisoning the patients, and
that they threaten to attack the hospital. On
my own responsibility I have written to the