you're a pretty
brother! Is _this_ the way you keep 'pointments with a poor girl? Who
killed the baby? You did--you _all_ did it.'

Her words ran one into the other, as with an eloquence, which I cannot
hope to reproduce (and indeed my excellent publisher would not permit
it for a moment), she continued to dance derisively at me, and to heap
reproaches of the most vexatious and frivolous nature on my head.

'Philippa,' I remarked at last, 'you frivol too much.'

A sullen look settled on her face, and, with the aid of a chair, she
reseated herself in her former listless, drooping attitude upon the
chimney-piece.

On beholding these symptoms, on hearing these reproaches, a great wave
of joy swept over my heart. Manifestly, Philippa was indeed, as Mrs.
Thompson had said, 'as mad as a hatter.' Whatever she might have done
did not count, and was all right. We would plead insanity.

She had fallen a victim to a mental disease, the source of which I have
no hesitation in saying has not yet been properly investigated. So far
as I know there is no monograph on the subject, or certainly I would
have read it up carefully for the purpose of this Christmas Annual. I
cannot get on without a mad woman in my stories, and if I can't find a
proper case in the medical books, why, I invent one, or take it from the
French. This one I have invented.

The details of Philippa's case, though of vast and momentous
professional interest, I shall reserve for a communication to some
journal of Science.

As for the treatment, I measured out no less than sixty drops of
laudanum, with an equal amount of very old brandy, in a separate vessel.
But preparing a dose and getting a patient like this to take it, are two
different things. I succeeded by the following device.

I sent for some hot water and sugar and a lemon. I mixed the boiling
element carefully with the brandy, and (separately) with the laudanum.

I took a little of the _former_ beverage. Philippa with unaffected
interest beheld me repeat this action again and again. A softer, more
contented look stole over her beautiful face. I seized the moment. Once
more I pressed the potion (the _other_ potion) upon her.

This time successfully.

Softly murmuring 'More sugar,' Philippa sank into a sleep--sound as the
sleep of death.

Philippa might awaken, I hoped, with her memory free from the events of
the day.

As Princess Toto, in the weird old Elizabethan tragedy, quite forgot
the ci