"And then, you know, he doesn't think of such a thing himself-of course he does not. Indeed, I don't think he's a marrying man at all."

"Oh, mamma, do not talk in that way-as if I expected any thing. I could not but tell you the truth when you spoke of Mr. Orme as you did." "Poor Mr. Orme! he is such an excellent young man."

"I don't suppose he's better than Mr. Graham, mamma, if you speak of goodness."

"I'm sure I don't know," said Lady Staveley, very much put beside herself. "I wish there were no such things as young men at all. There's Augustus making a fool of himself." And she walked twice the length of the room in an agony of maternal anxiety. Peregrine Orme had suggested to her what she would feel if Noningsby were on fire; but could any such fire be worse than these pernicious love flames? He had also suggested another calamity, and as Lady Staveley remembered that, she acknowledged to herself that the Fates were not so cruel to her as they might have been. So she kissed her daughter, again assured her that she was by no means angry with her, and then they parted.

This trouble had now come to such a head that no course was any longer open to poor Lady Staveley but that one which she had adopted in all the troubles of her married life. She would tell the judge every thing, and throw all the responsibility upon his back. Let him decide whether a cold shoulder or a paternal blessing should be administered to the ugly young man up stairs, who had tumbled off his horse the first day he went out hunting, and who would not earn his bread as others did, but thought himself cleverer than all the world. The feelings in Lady Staveley's breast toward Mr. Graham at this especial time were not of a kindly nature. She could not make comparisons between him and Peregrine Orme without wondering at her daughter's choice. Peregrine was fair and handsome, one of the curled darlings of the nation, bright of eye and smooth of skin, good-natured, of a sweet disposition, a young man to be loved by all the world, and-incidentally-the heir to a baronetcy and a good estate. All his people were nice, and he lived close in the neighborhood! Had Lady Staveley been set to choose a husband for her daughter she could have chosen none better. And then she counted up Felix Graham. His eyes no doubt were bright enough, but taken altogether he was at least so she said to herself-hideously ugly. He was by no means a curled darling. And then he was masterful in mind, and not soft and pleasant as was young Orme. heir to nothing, and as to people of his own he had none in particular. Who could say where he must live? As likely as not in Patagonia, having been forced to accept a judgeship in that| new colony for the sake of bread. But her daughter should not go to Patagonia with him if she could help it! So when the judge came

He was

home that evening she told him all before she would allow him to dress for dinner.

"He certainly is not very handsome," the judge said, when Lady Staveley insisted somewhat strongly on that special feature of the case. "I think he is the ugliest young man I know," said her ladyship.

"He looks very well in his wig," said the judge.

"Wig! Madeline would not see him in his wig; nor any body else very often, seeing the way he is going on about his profession. What are we to do about it?"

"Well. I should say, do nothing."

"And let him propose to the dear girl if he chooses to take the fancy into his head ?"

But

"I don't see how we are to hinder him. I have that impression of Mr. Graham that I do not think he will do any thing unhandsome by us. He has some singular ideas of his own about law, and I grant you that he is plain-" "The plainest young man I ever saw," said Lady Staveley.

"But if I know him, he is a man of high character and much more than ordinary acquirement."

"I can not understand Madeline," Lady Staveley went on, not caring overmuch about Felix Graham's acquirements.

"Well, my dear, I think the key to her choice is this, that she has judged not with her eyes but with her ears, or rather with her understanding. Had she accepted Mr. Orme, I as a father should of course have been well satisfied. He is, I have no doubt, a fine young fellow, and will make a good husband some day."

"Oh, excellent!" said her ladyship; "and The Cleeve is only seven miles.”

"But I must acknowledge that I can not feel angry with Madeline."

“Angry! no, not angry. Who would be angry with the poor child?"

"Indeed, I am somewhat proud of her. It seems to me that she prefers mind to matter, which is a great deal to say for a young lady."

"Matter!" exclaimed Lady Staveley, who could not but feel that the term, as applied to such a young man as Peregrine Orme, was very opprobrious.

"Wit and intellect and power of expression have gone further with her than good looks and rank and worldly prosperity. If that be so, and I believe it is, I can not but love her the better for it."

"So do I love her, as much as any mother can love her daughter."

"Of course you do." And the judge kissed his wife.

"And I like wit and genius and all that sort of thing."

"Otherwise you would have not taken me, my dear."

"You were the handsomest man of your day. That's why I fell in love with you."

"The compliment is a very poor one," said the judge.

"Never mind that. I like wit and genius too; but wit and genius are none the better for being ugly and wit and genius should know how to butter their own bread before they think of taking a wife."

"You forget, my dear, that for aught we know wit and genius may be perfectly free from any such thought." And then the judge made it understood that if he were left to himself he would dress for dinner.

When the ladies left the parlor that evening they found Graham in the drawing-room, but there was no longer any necessity for embarrassment on Madeline's part at meeting him. They had been in the room together on three or four occasions, and therefore she could give him her hand, and ask after his arm without feeling that every one was watching her. But she hardly spoke to him beyond this, nor indeed did she speak much to any body. The conversation, till the gentlemen joined them, was chiefly kept up by Sophia Furnival and Mrs. Arbuthnot, and even after that the evening did not pass very briskly.

One little scene there was, during which poor Lady Staveley's eyes were anxiously fixed upon her son, though most of those in the room supposed that she was sleeping. Miss Furnival was to return to London on the following day, and it therefore behooved Augustus to be very sad. In truth, he had been rather given to a melancholy humor during the last day or two. Had Miss Furnival accepted all his civil speeches, making him answers equally civil, the matter might very probably have passed by without giving special trouble to any one. But she had not done this, and therefore Augustus Staveley had fancied himself to be really in love with her. What the lady's intentions were I will not pretend to say; but if she was in truth desirous of becoming Mrs. Staveley, she certainly went about her business in a discreet and wise manner.

"So you leave us to-morrow, immediately after breakfast?" said he, having dressed his face with that romantic sobriety which he had been practicing for the last three days.

"Ah, but it's not pshaw! Half hours between young ladies and young gentlemen before breakfast are very serious things."

"And I mean to be serious," said Augustus. "But I don't," said Sophia.

"I am to understand, then, that under no possible circumstances-"

"Bless me, Mr. Staveley, how solemn you are!"

"There are occasions in a man's life when he is bound to be solemn. You are going away from us, Miss Furnival-"

"One would think I was going to Jeddo, whereas I am going to Harley Street." "And I may come and see you there!" "Of course you may if you like it. According to the usages of the world you would be reckoned very uncivil if you did not. For myself I do not much care about such usages, and therefore if you omit it I will forgive you."

"Very well; then I will say good-night-and good-by." These last words he uttered in a strain which should have melted her heart, and as he took leave of her he squeezed her hand with an affection that was almost painful.

It may be remarked that, if Augustus Staveley was quite in earnest with Sophia Furnival, he would have asked her that all-important question in a straightforward manner as Peregrine Orme had asked it of Madeline. Perhaps Miss Furnival was aware of this, and, being so aware, considered that a serious half hour before breakfast might not as yet be safe. If he were really in love he would find his way to Harley Street. On the whole, I am inclined to think that Miss Furnival did understand her business.

66

On the following morning Miss Furnival went her way without any further scenes of tenderness, and Lady Staveley was thoroughly glad that she was gone. "A nasty, sly thing," she said to Baker. Sly enough, my lady," said Baker; "but our Mr. Augustus will be one too many for her. Deary me, to think of her having the imperance to think of him." In all which Miss Furnival was, I think, somewhat ill used. If young gentlemen such as Augustus Staveley

"To tell you the truth, I am not sorry," said Augustus; and he turned away his face for a moment, giving a long sigh.

"I dare say not, Mr. Staveley; but you need not have said so to me," said Sophia, pretending to take him literally at his word.

"Because I can not stand this kind of thing any longer. I suppose I must not see you in the morning--alone?"

"Well, I suppose not. If I can get down to prayers after having all my things packed up, it will be as much as I can do."

"And if I begged for half an hour as a last kindness-"

"I certainly should not grant it. Go and ask your mother whether such a request would be reasonable."

"Pshaw!"

ladies, surely young ladies such as Miss Furnival should be allowed to play their own cards accordingly.

On that day, early in the morning, Felix Graham sought and obtained an interview with his host in the judge's own study. "I have come about two things," he said, taking the easy-chair to which he was invited.

"Two or ten, I shall be very happy," said the judge, cheerily.

"I will take business first," said Graham. "And then pleasure will be the sweeter afterward," said the judge.

"I have been thinking a great deal about this case of Lady Mason's, and I have read all the papers, old and new, which Mr. Furnival has sent me. I can not bring myself to suppose it possible that she can have been guilty of any fraud or deception."

iar; and while most of those who attained a distinguished place in the medical profession, in the earlier days of New York, are either entirely forgotten, or retain a cherished place in the memory of the few with whom they were or still are thrown in contact, it is his good fortune to have risen so far superior to these changes as to be little affected by them. The truth is, that his reputation is a world-wide one, and, like that of a distinguished and popular author, carries with it its own fame. With Sir Astley Cooper and Abernethy of England, and Dupuytren and Roux of France, his bold and brilliant operations have made his name familiar, not only to the surgeons but to the people of the whole United States; and hence, in the metropolitan changes of the city of his early surgical exploits, he has not been carried by the waves of increased population away from the public view.

While fully conscious of his own surgical achievements, and always pleased to converse about them, he is neither boastful nor arrogant. By no one is the student of medicine or the young practitioner of surgery more kindly received or more earnestly instructed than by him; and few who have had the good fortune to enjoy his personal acquaintance ever think of him but with the most agreeable recollections.

In the mutations of the city he has gradually been carried from his residence in Park Placethen the fashionable quarter of the city, with the old college trees visible on one side and those of the Park upon the other-first to Depau Row, Bleecker Street, and finally to Gramercy Park, where he now resides. In person Dr. Mott is somewhat above the ordinary height, and of a very good figure. No one, from his appearance, would suppose him to be more than sixty years of age. He is especially neat in his personal apparel, and very gentle in conversation. Even when under the excitement of an attempt to rob him of a part of that fame which he so justly prizes, I have never known him to forget the courtesies of the gentleman. Professor Eve, of Nashville, a distinguished surgeon and an old personal friend of Dr. Mott, a few years since published a work entitled "Remarkable Surgical Operations," in which he alluded to the removal of the collar-bone, under the most difficult circumstances, by Dr. Mott, and which largely increased, his reputation, as one that had been performed before by some little known Western surgeon. After uncommon pains in searching testimony, Dr. Mott was unable to find the case to which Dr. Eve alluded, and wrote to him, playfully complaining of his paragraph, to which the Doctor as pleasantly replied.

"All that I have to say," said Dr. Mott, in speaking of this," is, that I would not have so spoken of my old friend Eve."

After receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine from Columbia College, at that time the only medical school in the city, Dr. Mott went to London and became the pupil of Sir Astley, then Mr. Cooper, who was the surgeon at Guy's and St. Thomas hospitals, and the Professor of

Surgery in the medical school connected with these charities.

"There were," said Mott, "a remarkable set of men in the chairs of this school when I attended it. Babington in that of Medicine, Heighton in Obstetrics, Marcet in Chemistry, the elder Cline, the preceptor of Sir Astley Cooper, and his son, in Anatomy, and the great Master, Cooper, in Surgery. At that time Cooper had a large and very lucrative practice in surgery among the merchants and business men of London, and entertained very democratic ideas. He lived in New Broad Street, and his ambition was bounded by amassing a fortune by the prac tice of his profession among the great middle class that then patronized him, without aspiring to Court patronage or preferment.

"Sir Astley," continued Dr. Mott, "was at this time one of the most courtly gentlemen I ever knew. He was tall and commanding in figure, with very handsome features, and possessed of the most affable and courteous address. It was the custom of the time to wear the hair powdered; and his, in accordance with the usage, was thus whitened, and worn in a long queue; but his whiskers, which were in the prevailing fashion among the English, then and now, were of jetty black. His dress, which consisted of a black dress-coat, black silk smallclothes, and stockings of the same fabric, was always scrupulously neat."

Thirty years after the time when Dr. Mott, as a student of surgery at Guy's and St. Thomas, knew Sir Astley, he paid a second visit to London. During this period Sir Astley had vastly extended his reputation, become the idol of the court circles, was constant companion of the privileged classes, and the possessor of a vast estate. Nor had the position of the young pupil scarcely less altered. Returning to his native country with all the ardor of youthful ambition, a mind well stored by the accumulated experience gained in the large hospitals and under the great masters of the surgical art in London, with a steady hand, a bold and determined will, and a rapid conception of the difficulties to be encountered, he had slowly and surely not only risen to the first rank among the surgeons of his own country, but had obtained a renown hitherto unawarded to any American surgeon in Europe.

One of his first visits after his arrival in London was paid to Sir Astley Cooper, not in his old residence in New Broad Street, but in the more aristocratic quarter of the West End. Upon his arrival at the residence of Sir Astley he found several persons awaiting their turns to be admitted to the presence of the great surgeon. Without announcing his name he took his position with the others, and came into the presence of his former master unheralded.

Sir Astley looked at him for a few moments in some surprise, and impatiently waving his hand to him to be silent, said, "Don't tell me your name; don't tell me your name;" and, after a moment's hesitancy, said, "it is Dr. Mott."

It is hardly necessary to say that his reception by Sir Astley-who, on another occasion, said that "he has performed more of the great operations than any man living or that ever did live" -was of the most cordial and friendly character, and during his tarry in London he saw much of him. What particularly struck Dr. Mott on his return to London was the altered appearance of his former master, whom he had always pictured to himself as the same stately and elegantly-costumed gentleman he had known as a student. But in the mean time Sir Astley had grown careless in his personal appearance, and although still the well-bred gentleman, yet he was far less particular in manner and dress than heretofore. His hair, no longer powdered but of a gray color, hung loose and confused about his shoulders, his small-clothes had given place to pantaloons, and his whole costume was that of a careless if not a shabby man. And yet at that moment he was in the very zenith of his fame, ennobled, wealthy, and the first surgeon of his age.

"Come," said he, on the occasion of one of Dr. Mott's visits, "to my working-room, and I will show you what I have just been about." And he led the Doctor to his dissecting-room; for although in the most fashionable part of London, he kept a room in his dwelling for this purpose. "You see," said he to his visitor, "that I never omit an opportunity to fortify myself for the practice of my art."

"And," added Dr. Mott, in narrating this conversation to me, "neither do I. You are about to go where you will have the aid of few surgeons. Let me in parting urge on you, as the advice of one whom much practice has given a right to speak, never to perform a great operation without first fortifying yourself by this exercise."

complaint returning, I resolved to renew my former mode of life. And here I am again," continued he, "as happy a man as can be!"

While Dr. Mott was a student at Guy's, in London, Abernethy, who was a surgeon at St. Bartholomew's Hospital and Professor of Surgery in the Medical School attached to that hospital, shared with Sir Astley his fame as a distinguished surgeon.

Some time after Dr. Mott returned to America Sir Astley was invited to remove a small tumor from the forehead of the Prince of Wales, afterward George IV., which it was supposed might interfere with the fit of the crown. For the performance of this operation he received the order of knighthood. It was the intention of the Government to seize the opportunity to confer the same honor on Abernethy, and the Duke of York was deputed to wait upon the eccentric surgeon, and to invite him to be present on the occasion.

"At the day and hour you name," said Abernethy, "I shall be engaged at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and I will be d-d if I go !"

He thus lost the opportunity of becoming Sir John Abernethy.

Lawrence, whose work on Hernia Dr. Mott declared to be the best that was ever written, was at this time the demonstrator for Abernethy at St. Bartholomew's. He has for many years filled with great distinction the post of surgeon in this hospital, so ably occupied by his eccentric but distinguished predecessor and preceptor. Travers, too, whose work on Irritation is a model of its kind, and who obtained great celebrity in London as a surgeon, was a fellow-student at Guy's with Dr. Mott.

When Dr. Mott returned to New York, after his first European residence, he found the surgical field occupied by Dr. Richard S. Kissam and Dr. Wright Post, both of whom were not

"At first," said he to Dr. Mott, "my country life furnished me much enjoyment; and what with agricultural pursuits, the rearing of horses, and the sports of the chase, my time passed away very pleasantly. These, however, soon ceased to afford amusement; and I found myself, day by day, sinking deeper into a state of confirmed despondency. Suddenly I aroused myself. 'Am I,' said I to myself, 'not Sir Astley Cooper? Have I not wealth, and honor, and fame? Shall I sink into a miserable old driveling?'

"To rouse myself from this state," continued he, "I sent Charles" ["I remembered Charles," added Dr. Mott to me, "thirty years before, as Sir Astley's factotum"] "to London, to buy up all the old and disabled horses he could find, and thus established an infirmary for their cure. This did tolerably well for a time; but my old

gentlemen of much refinement and great courtesy of manner. The young surgeon was warmly welcomed by them, and almost immediately selected by Dr. Post, who filled the chair of Anatomy in Columbia College, as his demonstrator. His ambition to become a teacher was soon gratified, through the kindness of Dr. Post, who resigned his position as Professor of Surgery, in order that it might be conferred on Dr. Mott. He had, prior to this period, delivered lectures in the Columbia College School on Operative Surgery.

From that period until the present, whenever in New York, he has, with unremitting assiduity, discharged his functions as a Professor of Surgery in one or the other of the medical schools of the city.

"I imagine," said I to him on one occasion, when speaking of his favorable introduction into practice, "that you were exempt from the early struggles to which most young practitioners are compelled to submit?"

"On the contrary," replied he, "my early professional life was very far from being free