"I have similar ones far too often," replied the doctor. "Usually they are like this. A girl goes on till she is twelve or fourteen, learning absolutely nothing that she ought. Very likely she will not be able to read intelligibly or write a page without misspelling half the words. All at once the parents wake up to the fact that their daughter is a dunce. Then they proceed to put on the screws. The girl's own ambition is awakened, and she works with might and main, and all the work that ought to be spread over ten or fifteen years is crowded into five. The girl graduates with great honour—at sixteen, very likely; and the next thing you hear of her, she has gone to a water-cure, or she is in a decline, or some slight attack of cold or fever carries her off. Then everybody but the doctor says, 'What a mysterious dispensation of Providence!' Very much so! The 'mysterious dispensation' to me is that which gives children to people who have no sense to take care of them." "I don't think Isa ever had any easy time," remarked Miss Hardy. "She has always been driven. I wonder her mother would allow it." "She could not help it, Miss Hardy," said Rhoda. "Mr. Ferrand had a system, and that answered for everything. Isa must sleep on a hard bed, in a cold room, without a fire, with no carpet, and always with her windows open in all weathers, because the system required hardening. She must eat porridge for her breakfast, though she could not bear it; and if her mother remonstrated, Mr. Ferrand had something to say about the Spartans and their black broth." "The Spartans were a set of blockheads and ruffians," said the doctor, very conclusively. "And the worst of it was there was no 'let up,'" continued Rhoda. "Isa never had any fun like other girls. I hardly ever heard her laugh heartily till after she came here. No girls ever came to see her, and she never visited, because Mr. Ferrand thought their society was not improving. And yet he meant well; and he is half broken-hearted about poor Isa now." "It is not enough, my young friend, that people 'mean well,'" said the doctor. "They also need a little sense and some capacity of being taught. As to Isa, there is nothing to be done. Let her have her own way as far as possible, and try to keep her cheerfully employed. It was an excellent move of yours to set her to work for the old women, as she tells me you have done. Get her out as much as you can. Has she had any attacks lately?" "Not for five or six weeks but I can't help thinking her general health is not so good as when she had them oftener." "Very likely. You are managing her well, for aught I see, but you must take care of yourself. You look rather tired. Don't let her kill herself with work, Miss Hardy. She can't be spared just yet."