The physician assured her such was the case. "Then, doctor, I must tell you that you've been very patient with me, and have hastened day or night to see me, in my whims, as well as my real sickness, and you shall be rewarded. I have no money, but you see all my treasures arranged along on the mantel-piece there?" "What!" exclaimed the doctor; "you don't call those cats treasures, I hope!" "Yes, they are my only treasures, doctor. Now, I want to be just to _you_, above all others, because you've not only served me as I said, but you've often sent me wood and provisions during the cold winters--" Here she became too feeble to go on, and the doctor revived her with some cordial from his saddle-bags, when she took breath, and continued,-- "See them, doctor; eleven of them. Which will you choose?" The doctor, with as much grace as possible, declined selecting any one of the useless stuffed skins; when the old lady, by much effort, raised her head from the pillow, and said, "Well, I will select for you. Take the black one--take--the black--cat--doctor!" and died. Her dying words so impressed him, that he took the cat home, and, on opening her,--for it was very heavy,--he found that the skin contained nearly a hundred dollars, in gold. AMERICAN FEES AND INCOMES. There is a surgeon in New York city whose income from practice outside of the hospital is said to be twenty-five thousand dollars per annum. Dr. Valentine Mott, the celebrated New York surgeon, who died April 26, 1865, at the age of eighty-one years, had a very large income, but less than that enjoyed by several surgeons in the metropolis at the present time. There are some specialists in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, who receive greater sums annually than the regular medical or surgical practitioners. There is no law particularly controlling the prices of the former. The fee for a visit, by the established usage of the medical societies in these cities, is from three to ten dollars. A specialist sometimes receives fifty to one hundred dollars for prescribing in a case, for which another physician, in ordinary practice, would charge but an office fee of two to ten dollars. A quack specialist--and an impostor--in the latter city makes his brags that he has received twelve hundred dollars for one prescription. But then this same lying braggadocio says he has read medicine with Ricard, and had various honors conferred upon him.