see exactly what you have done. You have thrown me aside for a cook."

"Not at all!" exclaimed the doctor. "I had no idea of throwing you aside.
In fact, Miss Panney, I never thought of you in the matter at all."

"Exactly, exactly," said the old lady, with emphatic sharpness; "you
never thought of me at all. That is the sum and substance of what you
have done. I gave you my confidence. I told you my intentions, my hopes,
the plan which was to crown and finish the work of my life. I told you I
would make the grandson of the only man I ever loved my heir, and I would
do this, because I wished him to marry the daughter of the man who was my
best friend on earth. The marriage of these two and the union of the
estate of Cobhurst with the wealth of the Bannisters was a project which,
as I told you, had grown dear to my heart, and for which I was thinking
and dreaming and working. All this you knew, and without a word to me,
and if you speak the truth, all for the sake of your wretched stomach,
you clap into Cobhurst a girl who will be engaged to Ralph Haverley in
less than a month."

The doctor moved impatiently in his chair.

"Nonsense, Miss Panney. Cicely Drane will not harm your plans. She is a
sensible, industrious girl, who attends to her own business, and--"

"Precisely," said Miss Panney; "and her own business will be to settle
for life at Cobhurst. She may not be courting young Haverley to-day,
but she will begin to-morrow. She will do it, and what is more, she
would be a fool if she did not. It does not matter what sort of a girl
she is;" and now Miss Panney began to speak louder, and stood up; "it
does not matter if she had five legs and two heads; you have no right
to thrust any intruder into a household which I had taken into my
charge, and for which I had my plans, all of which you knew. You are a
false friend, Dr. Tolbridge, and at your doorstep I have shaken the
dust from my skirts and my feet." And with a quick step and a high
head, she marched out of the room.

The doctor took a little book out of his pocket, and on a blank leaf
wrote the following:--

Rx.
Potass. Bromid. 3iij
Tr. Dig. Natis. m. xxx
Tr. Lavand. Comp. ad 3iij
M.S. teaspoonful every three hours.
H. D.

Having sent this to Miss Panney by a servant, he went his way. Driving
along, his conscience stung him a little when he thought of the fable his
wife had told him; but the moral of the fable had made but little
impr