was
traveling by railway!"

There, her breath failed her. She reclined in her chair, and fanned
herself silently--for a while.

I was now able to turn my attention to the two visitors. Sir John Drone,
it was easy to see, would be no obstacle to confidential conversation
with Mrs. Eyrecourt. An excellent country gentleman, with the bald head,
the ruddy complexion, and the inexhaustible capacity for silence, so
familiar to us in English society--there you have the true description
of Sir John. But the famous physician was quite another sort of man.
I had only to look at him, and to feel myself condemned to small talk
while _he_ was in the room.

You have always heard of it in my correspondence, whenever I have been
in the wrong. I was in the wrong again now--I had forgotten the law of
chances. Capricious Fortune, after a long interval, was about to declare
herself again in my favor, by means of the very woman who had twice
already got the better of me. What a recompense for my kind inquiries
after Mrs. Eyrecourt! She recovered breath enough to begin talking
again.

"Dear me, how dull you are!" she said to us. "Why don't you amuse a poor
prisoner confined to the house? Rest a little, Matilda, or you will be
falling ill next. Doctor! is this your last professional visit?"

"Promise to take care of yourself, Mrs. Eyrecourt, and I will confess
that the professional visits are over. I come here to-day only as a
friend."

"You best of men! Do me another favor. Enliven our dullness. Tell us
some interesting story about a patient. These great doctors, Sir John,
pass their lives in a perfect atmosphere of romance. Dr. Wybrow's
consulting-room is like your confessional, Father Benwell. The most
fascinating sins and sorrows are poured into his ears. What is the last
romance in real life, doctor, that has asked you to treat it medically?
We don't want names and places--we are good children; we only want a
story."

Dr. Wybrow looked at me with a smile.

"It is impossible to persuade ladies," he said, "that we, too,
are father-confessors in our way. The first duty of a doctor, Mrs.
Eyrecourt--"

"Is to cure people, of course," she interposed in her smartest manner.

The doctor answered seriously. "No, indeed. That is only the second
duty. Our first duty is invariably to respect the confidence of our
patients. However," he resumed in his easier tone, "I happen to
have seen a patient to-day, under circumstances which the ru