ress Debora, speaking in
the plural number, though she gave none to anybody but herself.

"Oh, it is not worth mentioning."

"But I must just look if they have any inhabitants," she added; "this
fruit generally has." And searching for her spectacles, she placed
them on her nose and began examining the cherries, holding them first
close, then at a distance, and then taking off her glasses and wiping
them to look again.

"I don't know what is the matter," she exclaimed at last; "I can't see
in the least to-day."

"Eh, how? what is the matter?"

"Just try these glasses, nephew, and tell me if they magnify."

I looked through them. "Why, aunt, the hairs on my skin look like
porcupines' quills."

"O dear! then I must be becoming blind, for I can see nothing through
them."

"My dear aunt," I exclaimed, with a look of alarm, turning her round
to the light, "what can be the matter with your eyes? St. Gregory! you
are going to get a white cataract! Why don't you take more care of
yourself?"

"A white cataract!" she shrieked, covering her eyes with both her
hands. "Oh! I am lost! I am undone! Nephew, dear nephew! can you not
help me?"

"Hm!" I replied, with a look of anxious importance, making a few
doctor's grimaces; "have you no sensations of paralysis in the tunica
choroidaia?"

She knew what the tunica choroidaia was! and replied that she
certainly had some sensations of the kind.

"Do you awake often at night?"

"I do indeed, every night."

"Hm! a bad symptom. Show me your tongue."

She produced it. "A very bad tongue indeed (here, at least, I spoke
truth). If these symptoms should be accompanied by pains in the elbows
(I knew the good lady was subject to this), I fear, my dear aunt, it
may end in--marmaurosis!"

"O dear! O dear!--my elbows ache constantly; but what is the
marmaurosis?"

"That is when the retina gets apoplexia, and the patient remains in
total ablepsia."

She did not comprehend much of this, but what she did was quite enough
for her.

"For Heaven's sake, don't let me get blind, dear nephew!--what shall I
do, or what can I take?"

"There is not a moment to lose: you must go to bed instantly, while I
prepare some medicine."

I went home and mixed a little liquorice and rose-water, and found my
patient in bed on my return.

Having rubbed her eyes with the rose-water, and tied up her face so
that only her chin protruded from beneath the bandage, I ordered her
to keep quite quiet