"

"Sir!" faltered Helen, astonished and alarmed--Was the man a conjurer?

"A case for _phosphor_!" cried the passenger; "that fool Browne would
have said _arsenic_. Don't be persuaded to take arsenic."

"Arsenic, sir!" echoed the mild Digby. "No; however unfortunate a man
may be, I think, sir, that suicide is--tempting, perhaps, but highly
criminal."

"Suicide," said the passenger tranquilly--"suicide is my hobby! You have
no symptom of that kind, you say?"

"Good heavens! No, sir."

"If ever you feel violently impelled to drown yourself, take
_pulsatilla_. But if you feel a preference toward blowing out your
brains, accompanied with weight in the limbs, loss of appetite, dry
cough, and bad corns--_sulphuret of antimony_. Don't forget."

Though poor Mr. Digby confusedly thought that the gentleman was out of
his mind, yet he tried politely to say "that he was much obliged, and
would be sure to remember;" but his tongue failed him, and his own ideas
grew perplexed. His head fell back heavily, and he sank into a silence
which seemed that of sleep.

The traveler looked hard at Helen, as she gently drew her father's head
on her shoulder, and there pillowed it with a tenderness which was more
that of mother than child.

"Moral affections--soft--compassionate!--a good child, and would go well
with--_pulsatilla_."

Helen held up her finger, and glanced from her father to the traveler,
and then to her father again.

"Certainly--_pulsatilla_!" muttered the homeopathist: and, ensconcing
himself in his own corner, he also sought to sleep. But after vain
efforts, accompanied by restless gestures and movements, he suddenly
started up, and again extracted his vial-book.

"What the deuce are they to me?" he muttered. "Morbid sensibility of
character--_coffee?_? No!--accompanied by vivacity and violence--_nux_!"
He brought his book to the window, contrived to read the label on a
pigmy bottle. "_Nux_! that's it," he said--and he swallowed a globule!

"Now," quoth he, after a pause, "I don't care a straw for the
misfortunes of other people; nay, I have half a mind to let down the
window."

Helen looked up.

"But I won't," he added, resolutely; and this time he fell fairly
asleep.

CHAPTER XII.

The coach stopped at eleven o'clock, to allow the passengers to sup. The
homeopathist woke up, got out, gave himself a shake, and inhaled the
fresh air into his vigorous lungs, with an evident sensation of delight.