cal. She was, in short, a capital subject for humbuggery, had she
not tried it already to her heart's content.

Occasionally, I must confess, I felt somewhat disposed to put her on the
"starvation plan," as Dr. Johnson calls it,--on a diet of two pints only
of plain gruel (thin hasty pudding, rather) a day,--for she would have
borne it much better than did Mr. Gray, of the preceding chapter. I am
sorry I did not. However, I prescribed for her, in general, very well;
and, except in the last-mentioned particular, have no reason for regret
nor any call for confessions.

She remained under my care several weeks--all the while in a mill-horse
track or circle, beginning at the same point and coming round to the
same result or issue, when I frankly told her, one day, that it was a
great waste, both of time and money, for her to remain longer. I saw,
more and more clearly, that all her thoughts were concentrated on her
own dear self. _Her_ troubles, _her_ health, _her_ concerns, _her_
prospects in life and death, were, to her, of more importance than all
the world besides. No woman, as good as she was,--for she was,
professedly, a disciple of him who said to his followers, "Feed my
lambs,"--whom I have ever seen, was so completely wrapped up in self,
and so completely beyond the pale of the world of benevolence.

My final advice to her, in addition to that general change of personal
habits which, from the first, I had strongly recommended to her, was to
return to her native city, and, after making her resolution and laying
her plan, give herself no rest, permanently, till by personal appeal or
otherwise she had brought all the females within her reach into
maternal associations, moral reform societies, and the like.

On her return to her husband and children, she made an attempt to carry
out the spirit of my prescription, and not without a good degree of
success. But the great benefit which resulted from it--that, indeed,
which it was my ultimate object to secure--was that it diverted her
thoughts from their inward, selfish tendency, and placed her on better
ground as to health than she had occupied for some time before.

I saw her no more for ten or twelve years. Occasionally, it is true, I
heard from her, that she was better. Yet she was never entirely well.
She was never entirely beyond the circle in which she had so long moved.
She returned, at times, to medical advice and medicine; but, so far as I
could learn, with li