‘Well, sir, she just is on the rampage. “I’ll make ‘is fur fly,” she up and sez, sez she, when she heard as you was hout. Not a nice young lady for a small tea-party, sir,’ he added, lowering his voice; ‘a regular out-and-outer your sister is, to be sure.’ The Sphynx, in spite of his stolidity, occasionally ventured upon some slight liberty when addressing me. I made a gay rejoinder, reflecting on the character of his own unmarried female relations, and entered the room. Philippa was sitting on the lofty, dark oak chimney-piece, with her feet dangling unconventionally over the fireplace. The snow, melting from her little boots and her hair, had made a large puddle on the floor. I came up and stood waiting for her to speak, but she kept pettishly swinging her small feet, as one who, by the action, means to signify displeasure. ‘Philippa,’ I said sternly, ‘speak to me.’ ‘Well, here’s a gay old flare-up!’ cried Philippa, leaping from the chimney-piece, and folding her arms fiercely akimbo. ‘Who are you? Where’s the baby? _You_ a brother; you’re a pretty brother! Is _this_ the way you keep ‘pointments with a poor girl? Who killed the baby? You did--you _all_ did it.’ Her words ran one into the other, as with an eloquence, which I cannot hope to reproduce (and indeed my excellent publisher would not permit it for a moment), she continued to dance derisively at me, and to heap reproaches of the most vexatious and frivolous nature on my head. ‘Philippa,’ I remarked at last, ‘you frivol too much.’ A sullen look settled on her face, and, with the aid of a chair, she reseated herself in her former listless, drooping attitude upon the chimney-piece. On beholding these symptoms, on hearing these reproaches, a great wave of joy swept over my heart. Manifestly, Philippa was indeed, as Mrs. Thompson had said, ‘as mad as a hatter.’ Whatever she might have done did not count, and was all right. We would plead insanity. She had fallen a victim to a mental disease, the source of which I have no hesitation in saying has not yet been properly investigated. So far as I know there is no monograph on the subject, or certainly I would have read it up carefully for the purpose of this Christmas Annual. I cannot get on without a mad woman in my stories, and if I can’t find a proper case in the medical books, why, I invent one, or take it from the French. This one I have invented. The details of Philippa’s case, though of vast and momentous professional interest, I shall reserve for a communication to some journal of Science. As for the treatment, I measured out no less than sixty drops of laudanum, with an equal amount of very old brandy, in a separate vessel. But preparing a dose and getting a patient like this to take it, are two different things. I succeeded by the following device. I sent for some hot water and sugar and a lemon. I mixed the boiling element carefully with the brandy, and (separately) with the laudanum.