"O, no; excuse me, doctor. I've no taste for such things," answered the lady. "Come--I can't leave you alone in the carriage. Ned might take a fancy to walk off with you." Mrs. Carleton glanced at the patient old horse, whom the doctor was slandering, with a slightly alarmed manner. "Don't you think he'll stand, doctor?" she asked, uneasily. "He likes to get home, like others of his tribe. Come;" and the doctor held out his hand in a persistent way. Mrs. Carleton looked at the poor tenements before which the doctor's carriage had stopped with something of disgust and something of apprehension. "I can never go in there, doctor." "Why not?" "I might take some disease." "Never fear. More likely to find a panacea there." The last sentence was in an undertone. Mrs. Carleton left the carriage, and crossing the pavement, entered one of the houses, and passed up with the doctor to the second story. To his light tap at a chamber door a woman's voice said,-- "Come in." The door was pushed open, and the doctor and Mrs. Carleton went in. The room was small, and furnished in the humblest manner, but the air was pure, and everything looked clean and tidy. In a chair, with a pillow pressed in at her back for a support, sat a pale, emaciated woman, whose large, bright eyes looked up eagerly, and in a kind of hopeful surprise, at so unexpected a visitor as the lady who came in with the doctor. On her lap a baby was sleeping, as sweet, and pure, and beautiful a baby as ever Mrs. Carleton had looked upon. The first impulse of her true woman's heart, had she yielded to it, would have prompted her to take it in her arms and cover it with kisses. The woman was too weak to rise from her chair, but she asked Mrs. Carleton to be seated in a tone of lady-like self-possession that did not escape the visitor's observation. "How did you pass the night, Mrs. Leslie?" asked the doctor.