"Well, I hardly know, sir, and that's the truth, what it is that do ail her. Some folks call it consumption, others call it something else." "Who is her medical attendant?" I asked. "Doctor W----, sir; lives down yonder." "What does he say it is?" "'Pon my word, sir, I don't think he knows more about it than other folks. Them doctors, when they once gets into a house, there's no getting them out again; and as for the good they do, they dose you, they bleed you--ay, bleed you in both senses of the word! Ha! ha! You know what I mean, sir." I was disgusted at the vulgar contempt of this man for the noble profession of which I myself was a member, and was determined not to laugh at his low wit. I passed over his execrable joke with gravity, so as not to appear to see it. "If the doctor knows so little about it," I said, at length, "what do the people say it is? What is the popular opinion of the young lady's malady? What are the symptoms?" I saw by the coachman's countenance that he was rather surprised at the interest I took in the health of the young lady, and I fancy he suspected that I was a doctor. "Symptoms, sir!" he cried. "Oh, sir, very strange ones, they say." "How strange?" I asked. "Well, sir, there be a good many strange reports about the squire's adopted daughter. I b'ain't a-goin' to give credit to everything I hear, but folks _do_ say----" here he lowered his voice almost to a whisper and looked mysteriously, first over one shoulder, then over the other. "Well," said I, "Folks say----" "Yes, sir, folks _do_ say that the young lady, leastways, the squire's adopted daughter, is--is----" (here he put his finger to his lips and looked still more mysterious). "Well?" said I, impatiently. "That the poor young lady is under some evil spell--that she is _bewitched_." "Dear me! you don't say so," I exclaimed, with well-feigned astonishment. "Yes, sir," he replied; "leastways, so folks say about here." "How very dreadful! Poor young lady! Perhaps she is in love. Love is the only witchcraft that ever came in the way of my experience," I remarked. "And sure, sir, you're not far out there neither; for if there's one thing more like witchcraft than another, it is that same _love_. Lor', bless yer, sir, don't I remember when I was courtin' my Poll, how I'd stand under her winder of a rainy night for hours, just to get a peep at her shadow on the winder blind, and how I'd go for days without my beer, till folks didn't know what to make of me? Ah! but I got over it, though, in time. I got cured, but" (here he gave me a knowing look) "it wasn't by a _doctor_. No, sir, it wasn't by a _doctor_," he said, with a contemptuous emphasis on the last word. "Now, who do you think it was by, sir, that I got cured?" he asked. "I haven't the slightest idea," I replied, dryly, disgusted at the man's manner.