“It has this to do with it,” continued her husband, “that neither you, nor I, nor anybody else, however wise we may think ourselves, can know for a certainty, positively and conclusively, whether we are mad or not.” “Then do you mean to say that _I_ am mad?” “I mean to say this, my dear, that for aught you know to the contrary, you may be.” “Come, that is foolish, Frank. But you do not think so, do you?” “Think!--I think nothing about it,” replied Rowel; “only, as you seem to believe that such a lunatic as James Woodruff is very much in his senses, it might be supposed you had a bit of a slate loose yourself.” “Oh, I am sure I have not!” tartly resumed the lady. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying such a thing.” “No, no!--I do not say any such thing, by any means. The case of Woodruff is certainly, in one sense, the most singular I ever knew, and to me, in my situation, a peculiarly painful one; but what then?--what can I do?” “Why, you know, my dear,” replied Mrs. Rowel, in a deprecatory tone of voice, “that you _do_ manage his property, after all. The man is right enough as far as that goes?” “Right enough, truly--I _do_. But how do I? Is not the trouble as great as the profit? I keep it altogether where it was for him,--prevent him from squandering it in his mad fits, as he was about to do at the time I caused him to be placed in confinement,--keep him out of harm's way,--clothe him,--feed him,--medicine,--attendance,--everything,--and not a single item put down against his estate for all this. What was I to do, do you suppose? Was it likely that I should stand quietly by, and see all that he had himself, and all that my sister Frances left him, go to rack and ruin, waste and destruction, as if it were of no more value than an old song?” “But what was it that he was doing?” asked Mrs. Rowel; “for I am sure I could never find out.” “He was doing nothing actually,” said the doctor. “But what should you have thought of me, if I had kept my hands in my pockets until the mischief was past before I attempted to interfere? It was what I foresaw he _intended_ to do that caused me to step between. Was not he going to pull that good new house to pieces, for the sake of patching up the old one with its materials? The man must have been stark raving mad to have thought of such a thing, and everybody would have said so.” “_I_ should not have said so,” observed the lady; “though there is nothing wonderful about that, as you have told me that _I_ may be mad too. But it was always my opinion that the old family house was worth ten of the other, if it had but the same fire-grates and chimney-pieces put in it.”