HEARTS OF GOLD

20. THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL.

187 THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL. Chapter XX. When Lotus Stone graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, he was for weeks undecided where he would begin the practice of his profession. He certainly did not intend to settle in Grandville. From the very first he had, however, turned his eyes southward. Why he preferred the South has been previously mentioned. Weighing the advantages of two places, toward which his mind had inclined, he wrote to his old school fellow at Minton for an opinion upon the relative advantages of the places selected. In this letter to Clement, he stated at large, his view of the probabilities and drawbacks that might attend the beginning of his professional life in either place. To this friendly renewal of the confidence which had been somewhat shattered in the months that had elapsed since their conclave experience, Clement made an immediate reply. He did not, however, favor either of the places, between which Lotus was inclined to make choice, but recommended instead the flourishing city of Grandville . He pointed out the advantages of the new industrial life the place had taken on, and demonstrated the fine opening for surgical practice that would be sure to come to him through the daily accidents occurring about a plant of this description. Clement was too well acquainted with the unreasonable pride of his friend, however, to give the reason uppermost in his mind. Dr. Lotus Stone went South, confident that he was leaving Regenia Underwood and his heart under the waving elms of Mt. Clare. What his feelings were the night he found the angelic apparition pursuing her deeds of mercy among the shacks on the outskirts of Grandville is left for the reader to conjecture. As they drove along through night, beneath the moon-lit, southern 188 j. mchenry jones sky, a sense of serene contentment which had never before experienced stole into the heart of the young doctor. “What an unexpected delight,” he said. “I cannot realize that it is not an evanescent dream. Miss Underwood at Grandville! The thought is too preposterous to be true.” “And yet you are here. Can you not reconcile yourself to my presence as well as account for your own?” she replied lightly. “I cannot say I can. My intention from the first was to come to the South. If you remember, your ideas were decidedly against it.” “‘Circumstances alter cases,’ says a wise old saw, and I am as enthusiastically in favor of the South as the place for work and race development tonight as I was opposed to it when we discussed the subject last,” she said. “Where are Mrs. Underwood and Mrs. Levitt? How I have lived over the few bright days spent in Mt. Clare. That conclave, to me, I have often thought since, was the one glimpse of paradise given a man at rare intervals on this earth of sad regrets and bitter disappointments,” he said, lost in the afterthought which his mention of Mrs. Underwood and Mrs. Levitt’s names recalled. “The first is dead,” replied Regenia with as much calmness as she could command. “Mrs. Levitt, poor, poor dear, no one knows what has become of her.” “I did not know that,” he said apologetically. “Pardon me, if, in my ignorance, I have given you pain.” “Apologies are unnecessary,” she said. “Ask me what you will. It seems ages since I heard from kindly lips the mention of those two names. Your reference to them is rather in the nature of a blessing than otherwise. Grandmother died the night Lucile and Mr. St. John were married,” she hastened to say. “I was not at home and know but little of the cause of her sudden demise. Mrs. Levitt left home to go to church a few Sunday nights following and has never been heard of since. Dr. Leighton advertised and employed detectives to search for her, but the only evidence of her existence ever disclosed was her shawl, left near the ferry landing, at the foot of Scranton street. “And left alone,” he repeated slowly, “your property in the hands of Dr. Leighton, you came South seeking bread? Oh, the burning shame of it, that Dr. Leighton could permit anything so revolting!” 189 hearts of gold “No, you do the doctor an unintentional injustice. He possesses the property and offered to take care of me, but I refused to accept...