文档介绍：Majorie Daw
Majorie Daw
by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
1
Majorie Daw
CHAPTER I.
DR. DILLON TO EDWARD DELANEY, ESQ., AT THE PINES.
NEAR RYE, .
August 8, 1872.
My Dear Sir: I am happy to assure you that your anxiety is without
reason. Flemming will be confined to the sofa for three or four weeks, and
will have to be careful at first how he uses his leg. A fracture of this kind is
always a tedious affair. Fortunately the bone was very skilfully set by the
surgeon who chanced to be in the drugstore where Flemming was brought
after his fall, and I apprehend no permanent inconvenience from the
accident. Flemming is doing perfectly well physically; but I must confess
that the irritable and morbid state of mind into which he has fallen causes
me a great deal of uneasiness. He is the last man in the world who ought to
break his leg. You know how impetuous our friend is ordinarily, what a
soul of restlessness and energy, never content unless he is rushing at some
object, like a sportive bull at a red shawl; but amiable withal. He is no
longer amiable. His temper has e something frightful. Miss Fanny
Flemming came up from Newport, where the family are staying for the
summer, to nurse him; but he packed her off the next morning in tears. He
has plete set of Balzac's works, twenty-seven volumes, piled up near
his sofa, to throw at Watkins whenever that exemplary serving-man
appears with his meals. Yesterday I very innocently brought Flemming a
small basket of lemons. You know it was a strip of lemonpeel on the
curbstone that caused our friend's mischance. Well, he no sooner set is
eyes upon those lemons than he fell into such a rage as I cannot adequately
describe. This is only one of moods, and the least distressing. At other
times he sits with bowed head regarding his splintered limb, silent, sullen,
despairing. When this fit is on him--and it sometimes lasts all day--nothing
can distract his melancholy. He refuses to eat, does not even read