"Not at all, Mr. Smith," she answered, with one of her smiles, which were quite incomprehensible to me, until I hit upon the theory that she kept a stock of them for general use, as stingy old ladies keep up their half worn ribbons to make presents of to servant-maids; "I only wanted to know, before I made a remark to the colonel, whether Dr. Armstrong--" "Mr. Armstrong lays no claim to the rank of a physician." "So much the better for my argument. But is he a friend of yours, Mr. Smith?" "Yes--of nearly a week's standing." "Oh, then, I am in no danger of hurting your feelings." "I don't know that," thought I, but I did not say it. "Well, Colonel Cathcart--excuse the liberty I am taking--but surely you do not mean to dismiss Dr. Wade, and give a young man like that the charge of your daughter's health at such a crisis." "Dr. Wade is dismissed already, Jane. He did her no more good than any old woman might have done." "But such a young man!" "Not so very young," I ventured to say. "He is thirty at least." But the colonel was angry with her interference; for, an impetuous man always, he had become irritable of late. "Jane," he said, "is a man less likely to be delicate because he is young? Or does a man always become more refined as he grows older? For my part--" and here his opposition to his unpleasant sister-in-law possibly made him say more than he would otherwise have conceded--"I have never seen a young man whose manners and behaviour I liked better." "Much good that will do her! It will only hasten the mischief. You men are so slow to take a hint, brother; and it is really too hard to be forced to explain one's self always. Don't you see that, whether he cures her or not, he will make her fall in love with him? And you won't relish that, I fancy."