"O, what will become of me!" thought she, "if
he has gone and told him about Henley."

"Let's see the prescriptions, ma'am," said Dr.
Sampson.

Delighted at this concession, Mrs. Dodd took
them out of her desk and spread them earnestly.
He ran his eye over them, and pointed out that
the mucous membrane man and the nerve man had
prescribed the same medicine, on irreconcilable
grounds; and a medicine, moreover, whose effect
on the nerves was nil, and on the mucous
membrane was not to soothe it, but plough it
and harrow it; "and did not that open her eyes?"
He then reminded her that all these doctors in
consultation would have contrived to agree. "But
you," said he, "have baffled the collusive swindle
by which Dox arrived at a sham uniformity—
honest uniformity can never exist till scientific
principles obtain." Then, with a sudden start,
he compared her to Daniel. He was very fond of
comparisons. "Danle," said he, "questioned those
two elderly blaggrds apart, and thin they couldn't
agree in a lie, ye know, all for want of a 'consultashin.'
So says you, 'Well done, Danle, my lad.'"

"My dear friend, I am not so familiar — with
giants—as you do me the honour to imagine."

"Whist! Whist! and you said, I'll do a bit
o' Danle.'"

"Oh, quelle horreur!" cried Mrs. Dodd, in
unfeigned disgust.

"Listme! All four, been Danled, told y' a
different lie; and disn't that open your eyes?
Sceince, indeed! Put an easy question t' any real
sceince; will it sing ye four songs as wide apart
as the four winds of Hiven? Take a pashint
and his case to four lawyers, the most abused of
all Sceince's sons; will they fling him four impident
guesses a thousand miles wide of each other;
and ten thousand from the truth?"

Mrs. Dodd seemed dazzled by this observation,
and bowed her head in reluctant assent.

"Ye begin to see through 'em? Now then,
post nubila Phœbus: that is not donkey Latin,
ma'am, but the real article, and means, 'After
four muddlehids see one Sampsin work.' To
begin, is the pashint in love?"

The doctor put this query in just the same tone
in which they inquire, "any expectoration?"
But Mrs. Dodd, in reply, was less dry and
business-like. She started and looked aghast. This
possibility had once, for a moment, occurred to
her, but only to be rejected, the evidence being
all against it.

"In love?" said she. "That child, and I not
know it!"

He said he had never supposed that. "But I
thought I'd just ask ye; because she has no
bodily ailment, and the paassions are all counterfeit
diseases; they are connected, like all diseases,
with cerebral instability, have their heats
and chills, like all diseases, and their paroxysms
and remissions, like all diseases. Nlistme! You
have detected the sighs of a slight cerebral
instability; I have ascertained th' absence of all
physical cause: then why make this healthy pashint's
buddy a test-tube for poisons ? Sovereign drugs
(I deal with no other, I leave the nullities
to the noodles) are either counterpoisons, or
poisons, and here there is nothing to counterpoison
at prisent. So I'm for caushin, and
working on the safe side th' hidge, and that's the
mintal ; till we are less in the dark. Mind ye,
young women at her age are kittle cattle; they
have gusts o' this, and gusts o' that, th'
unreasonable imps. D'ye see these two pieces
pasteboard ? They are tickets for a ball,

          In Barkton town-hall."

"Yes, of course I see them," said Mrs. Dodd,
dolefully.

"Well, I prescribe 'em. And when they have
been taken,

          And the pashint well shaken,

perhaps we shall see whether we are on the right
system: and if so, we'll dose her with youthful
soceity in a more irrashinal forrm; conversaziones,
cookeyshines, et citera. And if we find ourselves
on the wrong tack, why then we'll hark back.

    Stick blindly to 'a course' the dockers cry.
    But it does me harm: Then 'twill do good by-an-by.
    Where lairned ye that, Echoes of Echoes, say!
    The killer ploughs 'a course,' the healer 'FEELS
           HIS WAY.'"

So mysterious are the operations of the
human mind, that, when we have exploded
in verse meritorious as the above, we lapse
into triumph instead of penitence. Not that
doggrel meets with reverence here below — the
statues to it are few, and not in marble, but
in the material itself—but then an Impromptu!
A moment ago, our Posy was not: and now is.
With the speed, if not the brilliancy, of lightning,
we have added a handful to the intellectual
dustheap of an oppressed nation. From this bad
eminence Sampson then looked down
complacently, and saw Mrs. Dodd's face as long as his
arm. She was one that held current opinions;
and the world does not believe Poetry can sing the
Practical; verse and useful knowledge pass for
incompatibles; and though Doggrel is not Poetry
yet it has a lumbering proclivity that way, and so
forfeits the confidence of grave, sensible, people.
This versification, and this impalpable and
unprecedented prescription she had waited for so
long, seemed all of a piece to poor mamma; wild,
unpractical, and — oh, horror!—eccentric.

Sampson read her sorrowful face after his
fashion. "Oh, I see, ma'am," cried he. "Cure
is not welcome unless it comes in the form
consecrated by cinturies of slaughter. Well, then,
give me a sheet!" He took the paper and rent it
asunder, and wrote this on the larger fragment:
        R    Die Mercur. circa x. hor; vespert:
                  eat in musca ad PrÅ“torium.
                     Saltet cum xiii canicul :
               prÅ“sertim meo. Dom : reddita,
           6 hora matutin : dormiat ad prand:
                   Repetat stultit : pro re nata.

He handed this with a sort of spiteful twinkle to