So--as I was saying--one day, being near upon driven to her wits' end, Aunt Barbree marched the boy up to Hi-jeen Villa (as the new great house was called), and begged for Dr. Clatworthy's advice; "for I do believe," she wound up, "the boy is sinking into a very low state of despondency." "And so should I be despondent," said the doctor, eyeing Nandy, "if I had that number of pimples and didn't know a sure way to cure them." "Fresh fruit don't seem to do no good," said Aunt Barbree, "though I've heard it confidently recommended." The doctor made Nandy take off his shirt. "Why," said he, enthusiastic-like, "the boy's a perfect treasure!" "You think so?" said Aunt Barbree, a bit dubious, not quite catching his drift. "A case, ma'am, like this wouldn't yield to fresh fruit, not in ten years. It's throwing away your time. Mud is the cure, ma'am--mud-bathing and constant doses of sulphur-water, varied with a plenty of exercise to open the pores of the skin." "Sulphur-water?" Aunt Barbree had used it now and then upon her fruit-trees, to keep away mildew. She doubted Nandy's taking kindly to it. "He's easier led, sir, than driven," she said. "My good woman," said the doctor, "you leave him to me. I'll take up this case for nothing but the honour and glory of it. He shall board and lodge here and live like a fighting-cock, and not a penny-piece to pay. As for curing him--if it'll give you any confidence, look at my complexion, ma'am. What d'ye think of it?" "Handsome, sure 'nough," said Aunt Barbree. "Satin, ma'am--complete satin!" said the doctor. "And I'm like that all over." "Well to be sure, if Nandy don't object--" said Aunt Barbree, hurried-like. Nandy thought that to live for a while in a fine house and be fed like a fighting-cock would be a pleasant change; and so the bargain was struck. Poor lad, he repented it before the first week was out. He couldn't abide the mud-baths, which he took in the garden, planted up to the chin in a ring with a dozen old gentlemen, stuck out there like cabbages, and with Clatworthy planted in the middle and haranguing by the hour, sometimes on politics and Napoleon Bonaparte, sometimes on education, but oftenest on his system and the good they ought to be deriving from it. Moreover, though they fed him well enough, according to promise, the sulphur-water acted on his stomach in a way that prevented any lasting satisfaction with his vittles. In short, before the week was out he wanted to run away home; and only one thing hindered him--that he'd fallen in love. This was the way it happened. Dr. Clatworthy, having notions of his own upon matrimony, and money to carry them out, had picked out a pretty child and adopted her, and set her to school with a Miss St. Maur of Saltash, to be trained up in his principles, till of an age to make him 'a perfect helpmeet,' as he called it.