"Well, my sign hangs out my office-door, 'Doctor John Millet,' and here I sit day after day, waiting for patients--I should spell it _patience_. This is a great city, and there are plenty of accidents happening every hour in the twenty-four, but unluckily for me there are more than plenty of doctors to attend to them, as every other door has one of their signs swinging out. Hyacinth has been sick, and I ran up there the other day, thinking, as he is a public man, it might be some professional advantage to me to have my name mentioned in connection with his sickness; he has a splendid place, six or eight servants, and everything on a corresponding scale. "To think of Ruth's astonishing success! I was in hopes it might help me a little in the way of business, to say that she was my cousin; but she has cut me dead. How could _I_ tell she was going to be so famous, when I requested her not to allow her children to call me 'cousin John' in the street? I tell you, mother, we all missed a figure in turning the cold shoulder to her; and how much money she has made! I might sit in my office a month, and not earn so much as she can by her pen in one forenoon. Yes--there's no denying it, we've all made a great mistake. Brother Tom writes me from college, that at a party the other night, he happened to mention (incidentally, of course) that 'Floy' was his cousin, when some one near him remarked, 'I should think the less said about that, by 'Floy's' relatives, the better.' It frets Hyacinth to a frenzy to have her poverty alluded to. He told me that he had taken the most incredible pains to conciliate editors whom he despised, merely to prevent any allusion to it in their columns. I, myself, have sent several anonymous paragraphs to the papers for insertion, contradicting the current reports, and saying that '"Floy" lost her self-respect before she lost her friends.' I don't suppose that was quite right, but I must have an eye to my practice, you know, and it might injure me if the truth were known. I find it very difficult, too, to get any adverse paragraph in, she is getting to be such a favorite (_i. e._ anywhere where it will _tell_;) the little scurrilous papers, you know, have no influence. "It is very expensive living here; I am quite out of pocket. If you can get anything from father, I wish you would. Hyacinth says I must marry a rich wife as he did, when I get cornered by duns. Perhaps I may, but your rich girls are invariably homely, and I have an eye for beauty. Still there's no knowing what gilded pill I may be tempted to swallow if I don't get into practice pretty soon. Hyacinth's wife makes too many allusions to 'her family' to suit me (or Hyacinth either if the truth must be told, but he hates a dun worse, so that squares it, I suppose). Love to Leila. "Your affectionate son, JOHN MILLET." CHAPTER LXXXVI.