His face was
half averted, but I instantly approved the Doctor's
taste, for the profile which I saw possessed all the
attributes of comeliness belonging to his mixed race.
He was more quadroon than mulatto, with Saxon
features, Spanish complexion darkened by exposure,
color in lips and cheek, waving hair, and
an eye full of the passionate melancholy which in
such men always seems to utter a mute protest
against the broken law that doomed them at their
birth. What could he be thinking of? The sick
boy cursed and raved, I rustled to and fro, steps
passed the door, bells rang, and the steady rumble
of army-wagons came up from the street, still he
never stirred. I had seen colored people in what
they call "the black sulks," when, for days, they
neither smiled nor spoke, and scarcely ate. But
this was something more than that; for the man
was not dully brooding over some small grievance,--
he seemed to see an all-absorbing fact or fancy
recorded on the wall, which was a blank to me.
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