the exclusion of the more special treatises, and
especially the rare and ancient works found on the shelves of the larger
city-libraries. He was on a visit to old Dr. Kittredge one day, having
been asked by him to call in for a few moments as soon as convenient.
The Doctor smiled good-humoredly when he asked him if he had an
extensive collection of medical works.

"Why, no," said the old Doctor, "I haven't got a great many printed
books; and what I have I don't read quite as often as I might, I'm
afraid. I read and studied in the time of it, when I was in the midst of
the young men who were all at work with their books; but it's a mighty
hard matter, when you go off alone into the country, to keep up with
all that's going on in the Societies and the Colleges. I'll tell you,
though, Mr. Langdon, when a man that's once started right lives among
sick folks for five-and-thirty years, as I've done, if he hasn't got a
library of five-and-thirty volumes bound up in his head at the end of
that time, he'd better stop driving round and sell his horse and sulky.
I know the better part of the families within a dozen miles' ride. I
know the families that have a way of living through everything, and I
know the other set that have the trick of dying without any kind of
reason for it. I know the years when the fevers and dysenteries are in
earnest, and when they're only making believe. I know the folks that
think they're dying as soon as they're sick, and the folks that never
find out they're sick till they're dead. I don't want to undervalue your
science, Mr. Langdon. There are things I never learned, because they
came in after my day, and I am very glad to send my patients to those
that do know them, when I am at fault; but I know these people about
here, fathers and mothers, and children and grandchildren, so as all the
science in the world can't know them, without it takes time about it,
and sees them grow up and grow old, and how the wear and tear of life
comes to them. You can't tell a horse by driving him once, Mr. Langdon,
nor a patient by talking half an hour with him."

"Do you know much about the Venner family?" said Mr. Bernard, in a
natural way enough, the Doctor's talk having suggested the question.

The Doctor lifted his head with his accustomed movement, so as to
command the young man through his spectacles.

"I know all the families of this place and its neighborhood," he
answered.

"We have the young lady studyin