The Psycho-cerebrals “took their departure” (Psycho-cerebral for “went away”), and left Jane Hardie brimful of anxiety. Alfred was not there to dispose of the tirade in two words “Petitio principii,” and so smoke on; and, not being an university woman, she could not keep her eye on the original assumption while following the series of inferences the learned doctor built so neatly, story by story, on the foundation _of_ the quicksand _of_ a loose conjecture.* * So novices sitting at a conjuror see him take a wedding- ring, and put it in a little box before a lady; then cross the theatre with another little box, and put that before another lady: “Hey! presto! pass!” in box 2 is discovered a wedding-ring, which is instantly _assumed_ to be _the_ ring: on this the green minds are fixed, and with this is sham business done: Box 1, containing the real ring all the time, is overlooked: and the confederate, in livery or not, does what he likes with it; imprisons it in an orange--for the good of its health. So poor Argan, when Fleurant enumerates the consequences of his omitting a single--dose shall I say?--is terrified by the threatened disorders, which succeed to each other logically enough: all the absurdity being in the first link of the chain; and from that his mind is diverted.---- “Now not a word of this to Alfred,” said Mr. Hardie. “I shall propose him a little foreign tour, to amuse his mind.” “Yes, but papa, if some serious change is really going on inside his poor head.” Mr. Hardie smiled sarcastically. “Don't you see that if the mind can wound the brain, the mind can cure it?” Then, after a while, he said parentally, “My child, I must give you a lesson: men of the world use enthusiasts--like those two I have just been drawing out--for their tools; we don't let them make tools of us. Osmond, you know, is jackal to an asylum in London; Dr. Wycherley, I have heard, keeps two or three such establishments by himself or his agents: blinded by self-interest and that of their clique--what an egotistical world it is, to be sure!--they would confine a melancholy youth in a gloomy house, among afflicted persons, and give him nothing to do but brood; and so turn the scale against his reason. But I have my children's interest at heart more than my own: I shall send him abroad, and so amuse his mind with fresh objects, break off sad associations, and restore him to a brilliant career. I count on you to second me in my little scheme for his good.” “That I will, papa.” “Somehow, I don't know why, he is coolish to me.” “He does not understand you as I do, my own papa.” “But he is affectionate with you, I think.” “Oh yes, more than ever: trouble has drawn us closer. Papa, in the midst of our sorrow, how much we have to be thankful for to the Giver of all good things!”