Jane Swanhope--the Fair
Maid of Somerset they used to call her--that married the fellow living
down Yeovil way who broke his neck in a steeplechase?"

"Do I remember her?" said the old lady. "She was one of my bridemaids
when they took me up to London to get married properly after I came
back. She was my cousin on the mother's side, but they were connected
with the Trelyons too. And do you remember old John Trelyon of
Polkerris? and did you ever see a man straighter in the back than he was
at seventy-one, when he married his second wife? That was at Exeter, I
think. But there, now, you don't find such men and women in these times;
and do you know the reason of that, Sir Percy? I'll tell you: it's the
doctors. The doctors can keep all the sickly ones alive now: before it
was only the strong ones that lived. Dear, dear me! when I hear some of
those London women talk, it is nothing but a catalogue of illnesses and
diseases. No wonder they should say in church, 'There is no health in
us:' every one of them has something the matter, even the young girls,
poor things! and pretty mothers they're likely to make! They're a misery
to themselves; they'll bring miserable things into the world; and all
because the doctors have become so clever in pulling sickly people
through. That's my opinion, Sir Percy. The doctors are responsible for
five-sixths of all the suffering you hear of in families, either through
illness or the losing of one's friends and relatives."

"Upon my word, madam," the general protested, "you use the doctor badly.
He is blamed if he kills people, and he is blamed if he keeps them
alive. What is he to do?"

"Do? He can't help saving the sickly ones now," the old lady admitted,
"for relatives will have it done, and they know he can do it; but it's a
great misfortune, Sir Percy, that's what it is, to have all these sickly
creatures growing up to intermarry into the good old families that used
to be famous for their comeliness and strength. There was a man--yes, I
remember him well--that came from Devonshire: he was a man of good
family too, and they made such a noise about his wrestling. Said I to
myself, Wrestling is not a fit amusement for gentlemen, but if this man
comes up to our country, there's one or other of the Trelyons will try
his mettle. And well I remember saying to my eldest son George--you
remember when he was a young man, Sir Percy, no older than his own son
there?--'George,' I said, 'if this Mr