hought him a well-meaning and impulsive, but rather
stupid maniac.

"Impossible, my dear doctor," she said; "you know I could not stand the
fatigues of such a journey."

"Well, then," replied the doctor, abruptly, "you must stop at home and
die."

"Oh! what a shocking naughty man you are to talk so."

Mrs Stoutley said this, however, with an easy good-natured air, which
showed plainly that she did not believe her illness likely to have such
a serious termination.

"I will be still more naughty and shocking," continued the doctor,
resolutely, but with a twinkle in his eyes, "for I shall prescribe not
only a dose of mountain air, but a dose of mountain exercise, to be
taken--and the patient to be well shaken while taken--every morning
throughout the summer and autumn. Moreover, after you return to
England, you must continue the exercise during the winter; and, in
addition to that, must have an object at the end of your walks and
drives--not shopping, observe, that is not a sufficiently out-of-door
object; nor visiting your friends, which is open to the same objection."

Mrs Stoutley smiled again at this, and said that really, if visiting
and shopping were forbidden, there seemed to be nothing left but museums
and picture-galleries.

To this the doctor retorted that although she might do worse than visit
museums and picture-galleries, he would prefer that she should visit the
diamond and gold fields of the city.

"Did you ever hear of the diamond and gold fields of London, Miss Gray?"
he said, turning to a plain yet pretty girl, who had been listening in
silence to the foregoing conversation.

"Never," answered Miss Gray, with a look of surprise.

Now, Miss Gray's look of surprise induces us to state in passing that
this young lady--niece, also poor relation and companion, to Mrs
Stoutley--possessed three distinct aspects. When grave, she was
plain,--not ugly, observe; a girl of nineteen, with a clear healthy
complexion and nut-brown hair, cannot in any circumstances be ugly; no,
she was merely plain when grave. When she smiled she was decidedly
pretty, and when she laughed she was captivating--absolutely
irresistible! She seldom laughed, occasionally smiled, and was
generally grave. There was something quite incomprehensible about her,
for she was not an unusually good girl, and by no means a dashing girl,
neither was she an intensely modest girl--and yet, plain Emma Gray had
perhaps driven more young me