"Don't speak in that way, dear," interposed Mrs. Beswick, softly, seeing that Phillida was pained. "Why, what's the matter with that way?" said the doctor, good-naturedly. "Well, Miss Callender will think you are not honest if you talk about trying a dodge. Besides, I'm sure Miss Callender isn't the kind of person that would say what she didn't believe. It was no dodge with her." "No; of course not," said the doctor. "I didn't mean that." "You do not admit any divine agency in the matter, doctor?" asked Phillida. "How can we? The starting-point of that poor girl's galloping consumption, according to the highest medical opinion of our time, is a little organism called a bacillus. These bacilli are so small that ten thousand of them laid in a row lengthwise would only measure an inch. They multiply with great rapidity, and as yet we can not destroy them without destroying the patient. You might just as well go to praying that the weeds should be exterminated in your garden, or try to clear the Schulenberg tenement of croton bugs by faith, as to try to heal that young woman in that way. Did you ever look into the throat of a diphtheria patient?" "No," said Phillida. "Well, you can plainly see little white patches of false membrane there. By examining this membrane we have come to know the very species that does the mischief--the _micrococcus diphtheriticus_." The conversation was naturally a little disagreeable to Phillida, who now rose to depart without making reply. She went over and shook hands with Mrs. Beswick, partly from an instinctive kindness, judging from her speech that she was a stranger in New York. Besides, she felt strongly drawn to this simple and loyal-hearted woman. "If you'd like to come to the mission, Mrs. Beswick," she said, "I'd take pleasure in introducing you. You'd find good friends among the people there and good work to do. The mission people are not all faith-healers like me." "Oh, now, I'd like them better if they were like you, Miss Callender. I think I'd like to go. I couldn't do much; I have to do my own work; the doctor's practice is growing, but he hasn't been here long, you know. I think I might go"--this with a look of inquiry at her husband. "Why not?" said Dr. Beswick. He could not help seeing that the association of his wife with the mission might serve to extend his practice, and that even Mrs. Beswick must grow tired after a while of conversations with him alone, sugared though they were. When Phillida had gone the doctor's wife said to her husband that she never had seen a nicer lady than that Miss Callender. "I just love her," she declared, "if she does believe in faith-healing." "Ah, well, what I said to her will have its effect," he replied, with suppressed exultation. "You said just the right thing, my love. You 'most always do. But I was afraid you would hurt her feelings a little. She doesn't seem very happy." XXIX. MILLARD AND RUDOLPH.