The doctor pressed into her hand the latest fee he had received, and descended the stairs. “That is a very extraordinary girl, madam, in the nursery,” he said to the lady, “something very superior about her; but she will get worse and worse; nothing for her but a more genial climate, constant care, perfect rest, careful diet: if she lives through the winter she must go in the spring. Lungs! chest! blisters will relieve her; and if we could produce the climate of Madeira here for a winter or so, she might revive; but, poor thing, in her situation—” The lady shook her head, and repeated, “Ay; in her situation.” “It is really frightful,” he continued, “the hundreds—thousands, I may say—who drop off in this dreadful disease; the flower of our maidens; the finest of our youths; no age, no sex, exempt from it. We have only casual practice to instruct us in it; we have no opportunity of watching and analyzing it, _en masse_, as we have with other complaints; it is turned out of our hospitals before we do what we even fancy might be done; it is indeed, as she said just now, ‘_forlorn_’ and ‘_forsaken_.’ Why, I know not; I really wish some one would establish an hospital for the cure, or, at least, the investigation of this disease; many, if taken in time, would be saved. Suffering, the most intense, but, perhaps, the best endured, from the very nature of the complaint, would be materially lessened, and a fresh and noble field opened for an almost new branch of our profession.”