This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE PIONEERS.
83

the inhumed fragment into his living members. Marmaduke suggested that the fault might lie in the living arteries and nerves, but Richard, considering the amputation as part of his own handy-work, strongly repelled the insinuation, at the same time declaring, that he had often heard of men who could tell when it was about to rain, by the toes of amputated limbs. After two or three years, notwithstanding that Milligan's complaints gradually diminished, the leg was dug up, and a larger box furnished, and from that hour no one had heard the sufferer utter another complaint on the subject. This gave the public great confidence in Doctor Todd, whose reputation was hourly increasing, and luckily for his patients, his information also.

Notwithstanding Mr. Todd's six years' practice, and his success with the leg, he was not a little appalled, on entering the hall of the mansion-house. It was glaring with the light of day; it looked so splendid and imposing, compared with the hastily built and scantily furnished apartments which he frequented in his ordinary practice, and contained so many well-dressed persons, and anxiously looking faces, that his usually firm nerves were a good deal discomposed. He had heard from the messenger who summoned him, that it was a gun-shot wound, and had come from his own home, wading through the snow, with his saddle-bags thrown over his arm, while separated arteries, penetrated lungs, and injured vitals, were whirling through his brain, as if he were stalking over a field of battle, instead of Judge Temple's peaceable enclosure.

The first object that met his eye, as he moved into the room, was Elizabeth, in her riding-habit, richly laced with gold cord, her fine form bending towards him, with her face expressing deep anxie-