Her supper was usually eaten in bed, for the invalid was strictly enjoined to retire to rest at an early hour; and long before she did so, a fire was lighted in her bed-room, so that she might not suffer from the shock of going into a cold apartment: for the same reason, the lady’s bed was well warmed previous to her entering it; and when she had been comfortably tucked up by her maid, a hot water bottle swathed in flannel was placed at her feet. Here the invalid was consoled either with a glass of warm white-wine-whey, or a posset, or arrowroot bought expressly for her at Apothecaries’ Hall; and thus the poor delicate lady was enabled to keep body and soul together until the morrow. But the course of diet followed by the lady was far from settled, for Doctor Twaddles paid great attention to what he termed “the voice of Nature,” and consequently gave strict orders that whatever his patient fancied she was to have. Accordingly, Mrs. Quinine continually felt convinced that her system required change, and that she needed some most expensive and agreeable article of diet. Now her mouth was parched, and nothing but strawberries, though they cost a guinea a pint, or a bunch or two of hot-house grapes, could relieve her; then she would give the world for just a taste of spring lamb and new potatoes; and then nothing would satisfy her but a mouthful or two of turbot, even though it were impossible to buy less than a whole one. All these little fancies Doctor Twaddles dignified by the name of “instincts,” and declared that they were simply the out-speakings of exhausted Nature. Mrs. Quinine was, of course, too weak to walk abroad, so Doctor Twaddles enjoined a daily airing in the park, when the weather was mild, in an open carriage; or, if the lady preferred it, he would advise a little horse exercise; and as Mrs. Quinine thought she looked extremely well in a habit and “wide-awake,” she seldom stirred out unless mounted on a “palfrey” from the neighbouring livery stables.