She still contrived to love the thing she could not respect. Once,
when an officious friend pitied her for her husband's lameness, she
said, "Find me a face like his. The lamer the better; he can't run after
the girls, like SOME."
Dr. Staines called on Lady Cicely Treherne; the footman stared. He left
his card.
A week afterwards, she called on him. She had a pink tinge in her
cheeks, a general animation, and her face full of brightness and
archness.
"Bless me!" said he bluntly, "is this you? How you are improved!"
"Yes," said she; "and I am come to thank you for your pwescwiption: I
followed it to the lettaa."
"Woe is me! I have forgotten it."
"You diwected me to mawwy a nice man."
"Never: I hate a nice man."
"No, no--an Iwishman: and I have done it."
"Good gracious! you don't mean that! I must be more cautious in my
prescriptions. After all, it seems to agree."
"Admiwably."
"He loves you?"
"To distwaction."
"He amuses you?"
"Pwodigiously. Come and see."
Dr. and Mrs. Staines live with Uncle Philip. The insurance money is
returned, but the diamond money makes them very easy. Staines follows
his profession now under great advantages: a noble house, rent free; the
curiosity that attaches to a man who has been canted out of a ship in
mid-ocean, and lives to tell it; and then Lord Tadcaster, married into
another noble house, swears by him, and talks of him; so does Lady
Cicely Munster, late Treherne; and when such friends as these are warm,
it makes a physician the centre of an important clientele; but his
best friend of all is his unflagging industry, and his truly wonderful
diagnosis, which resembles divination.
Pages:
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570