little doubtful still on the score of the
new dispensation, in spite of the mushrooms with rich gray gravy.

VII

My daughter Winona has become a Christian Scientist, and Josephine says
I have only myself to blame in that I encouraged her to model herself
upon Miss Jacket. This strikes me as a little harsh, seeing that Miss
Jacket, M.D., is a regular practitioner in the allopathic line, whereas
Winona declares that the science of medicine is all nonsense, for the
excellent reason that there is no such thing as disease. When I used
this argument as a defence, Josephine regarded me scornfully, and
remarked that the pair were practically one in ideas, and that it was
futile of me to split straws on such a point. Ye gods and little
fishes! Is it, forsooth, splitting straws to maintain that there can
be no sympathy of soul between a woman doctor who takes you at your
word and administers castor-oil to cure your stomach-ache and one who
elevates her nose and vows that you haven't one?

"You can't make fish of one and flesh of another," continued my wife,
majestically. "The mischief was done when they walked arm-in-arm for
weeks together while they were becoming intimate. It makes little
difference, it seems to me, as to the precise nature of the
development. If Winona hadn't embraced (as she calls it) Christian
Science, she would in all probability have worn bloomers, in which case
I should not have held Dr. Cora Jacket guiltless merely because that
young woman continued to wear petticoats. Neither do I in the present
emergency. Who was it introduced Winona to Mrs. Titus, I should like
to know?"

"Was Miss Jacket responsible for that?" I inquired, respectfully, not
venturing to contest further the soundness of my wife's logic in her
present excited frame of mind.

"She was indeed, and it is very little consolation to me that she
professes to be sorry for it now." Josephine tapped her foot with a
worried air, which found voice presently in a laugh born of sheer
desperation. "Isn't it perfectly ludicrous, Fred? Do you realize what
the child wishes to do?"

"I understood you to state that she wishes to enter upon a crusade to
show that all our aches and pains are hallucinations. There ought to
be a fortune in that, my dear, compared with which the profits from
David's electrical discovery will pale into insignificance."

"This is no laughing matter, Fred. She is intensely in earnest; her
heart is se