We recollect a case, on the nature of which two surgeons were consulted; and when the patient—a young lady—had been withdrawn, the _father_ requested to know if there were any objection to his being present at the conference. The surgeon to whom he seemed to address himself said, "None on my part;" to which the other _seemed_ also to assent. When the consultation was over, the surgeon who had thus _seemed_ to consent addressed the other, saying: "If ever we meet again, sir, our consultation must not be in the presence of the friends of the patient." This was said in a tone to which the other had not been accustomed; but, as a lady had just then entered the room, no reply was made. The next morning, however, the gentleman was called on to re-consider the tone in which he had thus addressed his brother consultant, when a satisfactory explanation settled the matter. Such things, however, are extremely disagreeable, and illustrate how much more easy it is to go straightforward than by any zigzag route. What! could not a father hear the honest opinion of two men concerning his child, until results of the consultation had been shorn down, certain parts thrown out, and the rest dovetailed together so as to be made a symmetrical nondescript, adapted to the requisitions of a vulgar conventionalism? In another case, in a consultation on a disease as plainly scrofulous as it was possible to be, the family attendant had pronounced that it was _constitutional_, but _not_ scrofula. This was, it appeared, a miserable assentation to the prejudices of the family, for the result proved that he knew better. Nevertheless, a consultation had taken place already with a very eminent surgeon, without the family being any the wiser in regard to the nature of the disease. The case not progressing, another surgeon was consulted, who, being asked what he considered the disease to be, replied that it was scrofula. Upon this, considerable surprise and uneasiness were manifested on the part of the family; and the surgeon, wondering what, in so plain a case, could be the doubt, took occasion to see the former medical attendant, and to ask him what he thought of the case; when he said that it was clearly scrofula, and that he had _never known the children_ of certain temperaments to which he considered the parents to belong, wholly without a tendency to that disease; so that he had all along been blinding the parents, so far as his opinion and that of another eminent man went, to the real nature of the malady.