In point of fact, my new practice had decided advantages. All the pills looked and tasted alike, and the same might be said of the powders, so that I was never troubled by those absurd investigations into the nature of the remedies which some patients are prone to make. Of course I desired to get business, and it was therefore obviously unwise to give little pills of Lach. or Puls. or Sep., when a man distinctly needed full doses of iron, or the like. I soon discovered, however, that it was only necessary to describe cod-liver oil, for instance, as a diet, in order to make use of it where required. When a man got impatient over an ancient ague, I usually found, too, that I could persuade him to let me try a good dose of quinine; while, on the other hand, there was a distinct pecuniary advantage in those cases of the shakes which could be made to believe that it was "best not to interfere with nature." I ought to add, that this kind of faith is uncommon among folks who carry hods or build walls. For women who are hysterical, and go heart and soul into the business of being sick, I have found the little pills a most charming resort, because you cannot carry the refinement of symptoms beyond what my friend Jahr has done in the way of fitting medicines to them, so that, if I had been disposed honestly to practise this droll style of therapeutics, it had, as I saw, certain conveniences. Another year went by, and I was beginning to prosper in my new mode of life. The medicines (being chiefly milk-sugar, with variations as to the labels) cost next to nothing; and, as I charged pretty well for both these and my advice, I was now able to start a gig, and also to bring my sister, a very pretty girl of fourteen years old, to live with me in a small house which I rented, a square from my old office. This business of my sister's is one of the things I like the least to look back upon. When she came to me she was a pale-faced child, with large, mournful gray eyes, soft, yellow hair, and the promise of remarkable good looks. As to her attachment to me, it was something quite ridiculous. She followed me to the door when I went out, waited for me to come in, lay awake until she heard my step at night, and, in a word, hung around my neck like a kind of affectionate mill-stone. WRITINGS OF T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.