A person afflicted with a disease is not apt to find agreeable occupation in reading hospital reports upon his particular ailment.
The novels were put aside, and although Lawrence felt that he had smoked almost too much during that day, he was about to light another cigar, when he heard a carriage drive into the yard.

Turning to the window he saw a barouche, evidently a hired one, drawn by a pair of horses, very lean and bony, but with their heads reined up so high that they had an appearance of considerable spirit, and driven by a colored man, sitting upon a very elevated seat, with a jaunty air and a well-worn whip.

The carriage drove over the grass to the front of the house--there was no roadway in the yard, the short, crisp, tough grass having long resisted the occasional action of wheels and hoofs--and there stopping, a gentleman, with a valise, got out.

He paid the driver, who immediately turned the vehicle about, and drove away.

The gentleman put his foot upon the bottom step as if he were about to ascend, and then, apparently changing his mind, he picked up his valise, and came directly toward the office, drawing a key from his pocket as he walked.