The friends and neighbors attributed the cure to the ointment. How very unreasonable! The ointment had been used during the spring, up to the time when he came under my direction, without any apparent benefit. What evidence then was there that it had been useful now? Why should not the change for the better be attributed to his increased exercise, the change of air and food, and the stimulus and warmth of woollen stockings? Had water, moreover, as his only drink, nothing to do with the cure? But while standing in the position I did, it was useless to decry the ointment or exalt my own treatment, since it would have been regarded as merely special pleading. Still, I did not shrink wholly from the statement of my honest convictions, whenever I was inquired of, even though I did not manifest a disposition to carry the war into Africa. CHAPTER LI. SUDDEN CHANGES IN OLD AGE. Mrs. N. was about seventy years of age. In her early years she had possessed a sort of masculine constitution; and though embarrassed by poverty, had reared a large family of children, who were all well settled in the world. She resided with the youngest but one of them, where she did just as she pleased. In short, she had a good home, and, had she enjoyed health, might have been happy. But a change had come over her in point of health, which it was not so easy to account for at its outset as in its progress. For her first derelictions, at least, I know of no cause. But she had, at length, become reconciled to the use of tea, and as her spirits began to flag, she added to it strong coffee. From these she proceeded to the pipe. The more she increased her extra stimulants, the more she added to her troubles, and the greater was her necessity for additional stimulus. Laudanum was very soon on her list; at first, it is true, in very small quantities. Yet, as she grew older, she found a necessity, as she verily believed, for increasing the size of her dose from year to year, till, at the age of seventy, I found her in the full and free use of tea, coffee, tobacco, and laudanum,--the latter to the enormous extent of half an ounce a day,--and yet her complaints were more numerous than ever. She was a reasonable woman, and therefore I attempted to set forth, in their true colors, the realities of her condition. However, as I was not acting as her physician, but only as a friend, I had little hope of making any very permanent impressions. She knew the whole story as well as I or any one else could know it. The great difficulty under which she labored was a want of resolution to change her habits. Her irresolution was sustained by the belief--a very general one--that old people cannot make sudden changes in their physical habits with safety.[G] But she was unhappy in the condition she then was. She had no peace with conscience, nor, as I might almost venture to say,--for she was a religious woman by profession,--with God.