“He only compared the situation, not the people.”
“But, papa, the Bible is not to be dragged into the common affairs of life.”
“Then what on earth is the use of it?”
“Oh, papa! Well, it is not Sunday, but I have had a sermon. This is the clergyman, and you are the commentator—he! he! And so now let us go back from divinity to medicine. I repeat” (this was the first time she had said it) “that my other doctors give me real prescriptions, written in hieroglyphics. You can't look at them without feeling there MUST be something in them.”
An angry spot rose on Christopher's cheek, but he only said, “And are your other doctors satisfied with the progress your disorder is making under their superintendence?”
“Perfectly! Papa, tell him what they say, and I'll find him their prescriptions.” She went to a drawer, and rummaged, affecting not to listen.
Lusignan complied. “First of all, sir, I must tell you they are confident it is not the lungs, but the liver.”
“The what!” shouted Christopher.
“Ah!” screamed Rosa. “Oh, don't!—bawling!”
“And don't you screech,” said her father, with a look of misery and apprehension impartially distributed on the resounding pair.
“You must have misunderstood them,” murmured Staines, in a voice that was now barely audible a yard off. “The hemorrhage of a bright red color, and expelled without effort or nausea?”
“From the liver—they have assured me again and again,” said Lusignan.
Christopher's face still wore a look of blank amazement, till Rosa herself confirmed it positively.
Then he cast a look of agony upon her, and started up in a passion, forgetting once more that his host abhorred the sonorous. “Oh, shame! shame!” he cried, “that the noble profession of medicine should be disgraced by ignorance such as this.” Then he said, sternly, “Sir, do not mistake my motives; but I decline to have anything further to do with this case, until those two gentlemen have been relieved of it; and, as this is very harsh, and on my part unprecedented, I will give you one reason out of many I COULD give you. Sir, there is no road from the liver to the throat by which blood can travel in this way, defying the laws of gravity; and they knew, from the patient, that no strong expellent force has ever been in operation. Their diagnosis, therefore, implies agnosis, or ignorance too great to be forgiven. I will not share my patient with two gentlemen who know so little of medicine, and know nothing of anatomy, which is the A B C of medicine. Can I see their prescriptions?”
These were handed to him. “Good heavens!” said he, “have you taken all these?”
“Most of them.”
“Why, then you have drunk about two gallons of unwholesome liquids, and eaten a pound or two of unwholesome solids. These medicines have co-operated with the malady. The disorder lies, not in the hemorrhage, but in the precedent extravasation that is a drain on the system; and how is the loss to be supplied? Why, by taking a little more nourishment than before; there is no other way; and probably Nature, left to herself, might have increased your appetite to meet the occasion. But those two worthies have struck that weapon out of Nature's hand; they have peppered away at the poor ill-used stomach with drugs and draughts, not very deleterious I grant you, but all more or less indigestible, and all tending, not to whet the appetite, but to clog the stomach, or turn the stomach, or pester the stomach, and so impair the appetite, and so co-operate, indirectly, with the malady.”
“This is good sense,” said Lusignan. “I declare, I—I wish I knew how to get rid of them.”
“Oh, I'll do that, papa.”
“No, no; it is not worth a rumpus.”
“I'll do it too politely for that. Christopher, you are very clever—TERRIBLY clever. Whenever I threw their medicines away, I was always a little better that day. I will sacrifice them to you. It IS a sacrifice. They are both so kind and chatty, and don't grudge me hieroglyphics; now you do.”
She sat down and wrote two sweet letters to Dr. Snell and Mr. Wyman, thanking them for the great attention they had paid her; but finding herself getting steadily worse, in spite of all they had done for her, she proposed to discontinue her medicines for a time, and try change of air.
“And suppose they call to see whether you are changing the air?”
“In that case, papa—'not at home.'”
The notes were addressed and despatched.
Then Dr. Staines brightened up, and said to Lusignan, “I am now happy to tell you that I have overrated the malady. The sad change I see in Miss Lusignan is partly due to the great bulk of unwholesome esculents she has been eating and drinking under the head of medicines. These discontinued, she might linger on for years, existing, though not living—the tight-laced cannot be said to live. But if she would be healthy and happy, let her throw that diabolical machine into the fire. It is no use asking her to loosen it; she can't. Once there, the temptation is too strong. Off with it, and, take my word, you will be one of the healthiest and most vigorous young ladies in Europe.”
Rosa looked rueful, and almost sullen. She said she had parted with her doctors for him, but she really could not go about without stays. “They are as loose as they can be. See!”
“That part of the programme is disposed of,” said Christopher. “Please go on to No. 2. How about the raw red line where the loose machine has sawed you?”
“What red line? No such thing! Somebody or other has been peeping in at my window. I'll have the ivy cut down to-morrow.”
“Simpleton!” said Mr. Lusignan, angrily. “You have let the cat out of the bag. There is such a mark, then, and this extraordinary young man has discerned it with the eye of science.”
“He never discerned it at all,” said Rosa, red as fire; “and, what is more, he never will.”
“I don't want to. I should be very sorry to. I hope it will be gone in a week.”
“I wish YOU were gone now—exposing me in this cruel way,” said Rosa, angry with herself for having said an idiotic thing, and furious with him for having made her say it.
“Oh, Rosa!” said Christopher, in a voice of tenderest reproach.
But Mr. Lusignan interfered promptly. “Rosa, no noise. I will not have you snapping at your best friend and mine. If you are excited, you had better retire to your own room and compose yourself. I hate a clamor.”
Rosa made a wry face at this rebuke, and then began to cry quietly.
Every tear was like a drop of blood from Christopher's heart. “Pray don't scold her, sir,” said he, ready to snivel himself. “She meant nothing unkind: it is only her pretty sprightly way; and she did not really imagine a love so reverent as mine”—
“Don't YOU interfere between my father and me,” said this reasonable young lady, now in an ungovernable state of feminine irritability.
“No, Rosa,” said Christopher, humbly. “Mr. Lusignan,” said he, “I hope you will tell her that, from the very first, I was unwilling to enter on this subject with HER. Neither she nor I can forget my double character. I have not said half as much to her as I ought, being her physician; and yet you see I have said more than she can bear from me, who, she knows, love her and revere her. Then, once for all, do pray let me put this delicate matter into your hands: it is a case for parental authority.”
“Unfatherly tyranny, that means,” said Rosa. “What business have gentlemen interfering in such things? It is unheard of. I will not submit to it, even from papa.”
“Well, you need not scream at me,” said Mr. Lusignan; and he shrugged his shoulders to Staines. “She is impracticable, you see. If I do my duty, there