“I hold,” said Elsworth, “that all hospitals are only necessary evils in an imperfect state of society.” “I have long held that opinion, too,” replied Mildred; “it seems to me that our poor people are far too ready to get rid of their sick and troublesome relatives.” “Yes, nursing is rapidly becoming a lost art amongst the working people,” remarked Aunt Janet. “The instant their children, husbands, or wives get sick, they are packed off to one or other of the charities which compete for their favours and they are troubled with them no more till they are cured.” “You mean till they recover?” said Mildred, with an arch look. “Oh, we really do make some cures, though our Spanish friends are cruel enough to say, ‘_El medico lleva la plata pero Dios es que sana!_’ (the doctor takes the fee, but God works the cure.”) “I fear our noble art is not more highly esteemed here than in England,” said Dr. Graves. “England is the very Paradise of doctors; though the art of medicine, so far from making progress even there, bids fair to be destroyed by a noisy and arrogant school,” said Elsworth emphatically. “You mean the ultra-physiological party which goes in for these hideous inoculations?” asked Mildred. “I do,” he replied. “While I was a student at the hospital, I often remarked the contempt with which many of the physicians spoke of drugs and of the people who believed in them; and found it difficult to reconcile all they said with their practice amongst their private patients who went to their consulting rooms and always returned armed with prescriptions which they were instructed should be dispensed only at the most eminent pharmacies. At the hospital, peppermint water was the great remedy for every complaint, except where some new thing was in hand which wanted testing; but when the guinea-paying public were to be dealt with, they received the most formidable prescriptions, resulting ultimately in rows of medicine bottles.” Mr. Crowe looked very cross at this, and would have replied with bitterness had it not been for the ladies. To make matters worse, Aunt Janet capped it. “Yes, I remember Dr. Lee declaring at a meeting of medical men that drugs were a delusion and a sham; and that nothing but nature and a good nurse were wanted to cure any complaint amenable to treatment.” “What did the others say?” asked Elsworth. “Oh, they objected that it was all very well for a Royal Physician, who had reached the top of the ladder to talk like that, but that it would not work well for those who were still climbing.” Wishing to divert the conversation into another channel, Mildred asked Elsworth if he did not think with her that the great cause of sickness amongst the poor was due to drink—in England, at all events.