"Hah! I knew I was right. Well, then, my dear, we must think it over seriously. You see, the weakness must have come on suddenly. How, he and somebody else best know," said the lady, with asperity. "You see, attacks like that are only temporary, and his would, I am sure, yield to proper treatment. Now let me see what ought to be the first steps? This is a valuable practice, if he has not completely wrecked it by his wicked dissipation, and I think it ought to be our first duty, my dear, to get a permanent _locum tenens_--a man of some eminence, who might be induced to come if some hope were held out to him of a future partnership. Then we could consult him about what to do, for I believe certificates have to be obtained before a patient is sent to an asylum." "Aunt! Are you going mad too?" cried Laura, angrily. "Laura! my child!" "Well, then, you should not say such horrid things about Fred. Consult a perfect stranger about putting him into a lunatic asylum! Oh, shame!" "Shame to you, Laura, for daring to speak to me as you do. Do you want him to have one of those what-do-you-call-thems?--Para-para-para-dox-- no, no, paroxysms; and then do as mad people always do, turn against those they love best? Do you want him to come some night and murder us both in our beds?" "No, aunt, of course not," said Laura, growing more cool and matter-of-fact now. "Then do not from any false sentiment begin to oppose me. A few months under proper treatment in a good private asylum, and he would come back completely strengthened and cured. Now, let me see; I think under the circumstances that we ought first of all, my dear, to take poor dear Isabel into our confidences." "Aunt!" cried Laura; "if you dare to tell Isabel that you think such a dreadful thing of poor Fred I don't know what I will not do." "Dare, Laura, dare?" said Aunt Grace, sternly. "Yes, aunt, dare!" cried the girl. "If you do I'll tell poor Bel that it is one of your hallucinations, and that you have got softening of the brain." "Laura!" shrieked the old lady, as she sank back in the nearest chair. "Oh, that I should live to hear such words! You horrible, abandoned child!" "I'm very sorry, auntie," said Laura, coolly, "but you always impressed upon me that I should tell the truth. You must be getting imbecile, or you would never have proposed such a dreadful thing." "Laura!" "Yes, aunt; it is a sign, too, that you know it is coming on. You must have been thinking of madhouses, and that made you speak." "Worse and worse!" wailed the old lady. "You must be getting as bad as your brother. Actually siding with him now!" "No, aunt, only pitying him, for I am beginning to believe that he is suffering worse than we are." CHAPTER SIXTEEN. A DANGEROUS CASE.