Doctor Cupid   By: Rhoda Broughton (1840-1920)

Ich komme, Ich weiss nicht woher; Ich gehe, Ich weiss nicht wohin; Ich bin, Ich weiss nicht was; Mich wundert dass Ich so fröhlich bin

DOCTOR CUPID

A Novel

BY

RHODA BROUGHTON

AUTHOR OF 'COMETH UP AS A FLOWER,' 'NANCY,' 'GOOD BYE, SWEETHEART!' 'SECOND THOUGHTS,' ETC.

' Oh, Doctor Cupid, thou for me reply ' SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

A NEW EDITION

LONDON

RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON ST.

Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen

1891

DOCTOR CUPID

CHAPTER I

WHAT THE BIG HOUSE OWES TO US.

1. As much of our company as it likes to command.

2. As much dance music as it can get out of our fingers.

3. The complete transfer of all the bores among its guests from its shoulders to ours.

4. The entire management of its Workhouse teas.

5. The wear and tear of mind of all its Christmas trees and bran pies.

6. The physicking of its sick dogs.

7. The setting its canaries' broken legs.

8. The general cheerful and grateful charing for it.

WHAT WE OWE TO THE BIG HOUSE.

1. Heartburnings from envy.

2. Headaches from dissipation.

3. The chronic discontent of our three maids.

4. The utter demoralisation of our boot boy.

5. The acquaintance of several damaged fine ladies.

6. A roll of red flannel from the last wedding.

7. The occasional use of a garden hose.

'There! I do not think that the joys and sorrows of living in a little house under the shadow of a big one were ever more lucidly set forth,' says an elder sister, holding up the slate on which she has just been totting up this ingenious debit and credit account to a pink junior, kneeling, head on hand, beside her; a junior who, not so long ago, did sums on that very slate, and the straggle of briony round whose sailor hat tells that she has only just left the sunburnt harvest fields and the overgrown August hedgerows behind her.

'We have had a good deal of fun out of it too,' says she, rather remorsefully. 'Do you remember' with a sigh of recollected enjoyment 'the day that we all blackened our faces with soot, and could not get the soot off again afterwards?'

To what but a mind of seventeen could such a reminiscence have appeared in the light of a departed joy?

'I have left out an item, I see,' says Margaret, running her eye once again over her work; 'an unlimited quantity of the society of Freddy Ducane, when nothing better turns up for him! Under which head, profit or loss' glancing with a not more than semi amused smile at her sister 'am I to enter it, eh, Prue?'

'Loss, loss!' replies Prue, with a suspiciously rosy precipitation. 'No question about it; no one makes us lose so much time as he! Loss, loss!'

Margaret's eyes rest for an instant on her sister's face, and then return not quite comfortably to the slate, upon which she painstakingly inscribes the final entry, 'An unlimited quantity of Freddy Ducane's society, when nothing better turns up for him!'

'"The acquaintance of several damaged fine ladies!"' reads Prue over her sister's shoulder. 'I suppose that means Lady Betty?'

'I name no names,' replies Margaret gravely. 'I keep to a discreet generality

'"If it do her right, Then she hath wrong'd herself; if she be free, Why, then, my taxing like a wild goose flies, Unclaimed of any man."'

'Dear me!' repeats Prue, under her breath, in a rather awed voice; 'I wonder what it feels like to be damaged!'

'You had better ask her,' drily.

'I suppose she says dreadful things,' continues the young girl, still with that same awed curiosity. 'I heard Mrs. Evans telling you that she "stuck at nothing." I wonder how she does it.'

'You had better ask her,' more drily.

'Damaged or not damaged,' cries Prue, springing up from her knees and beginning to caper about the room, and sing to her own capering, 'we shall meet her to night

'"For I'm to be married to day, to day, For I'm to be married to day."