“Rather a painful old party, your cousin?” inquired the physician, smilingly, of Clyde. “Old? Twenty-two,” said Mrs. Clyde. “But she looks fifty and feels a hundred.” “Allowing for feminine exaggeration,” amended Clyde. “But what’s so wrong with her?” demanded the physician. “Nerves,” said Mrs. Clyde. “Stomach,” said Mr. Clyde. “Headaches,” said Mrs. Clyde. “Toe-aches,” said Mr. Clyde. “Too much money,” said Mrs. Clyde. “Too much ego,” said Mr. Clyde. “Dyspepsia.” “Hypochondria.” “Chronic inertia.” “Set it to music,” suggested Dr. Strong, “and sing it as a duet of disease, from ablepsy to zymosis, inclusively. I shall be immensely interested to observe this prodigy of ills.” “You’ll have plenty of opportunity,” said Mrs. Clyde rather maliciously. “You’re to sit next to her at dinner to-night.” “Then put Bettykin on the other side of me,” he returned. “With that combination of elf, tyrant, and angel close at hand, I can turn for relief from the grave to the cradle.” “Indeed you cannot. Louise can’t endure children. She says they get on her nerves. _My_ children!” “Now you _have_ put the finishing touch to your character sketch,” observed Dr. Strong. “A woman of child-bearing age who can’t endure children—well, she is pretty far awry.” “Yet I can remember Louise when she was a sweet, attractive young girl,” sighed Mrs. Clyde. “That was before her mother died, and left her to the care of a father too busy making money to do anything for his only child but spend it on her.” “You’re talking about Lou Ennis, I know,” said Grandma Sharpless, who had entered in time to hear the closing words. “Yes,” said. Dr. Strong. “What is our expert diagnostician’s opinion of the case? You know I always defer to you, ma’am, on any problem that’s under the surface of things.” “None of your soft sawder, young man!” said the old lady, her shrewd, gray eyes twinkling from her shrewd, pink face. “My opinion of Louise Ennis? I’ll give it to you in two words. Just spoiled.” “Taking my warning as I find it,” remarked the physician, rising, “I shall now retire to put on some chain armor under my evening coat, in case the Terrible Cousin attempts to stab me with an oyster-fork.” The dinner was not, as Mrs. Clyde was forced to admit afterward, by any means the dismal function which she had anticipated. Oren Taylor, an easy, discursive, humorous talker, set the pace and was ably seconded by Grandma Sharpless, whose knack of incisive and pointed comment served to spur him to his best. Dr. Strong, who said little, attempted to draw Miss Ennis into the current of talk, and was rewarded with an occasional flash of rather acid wit, which caused the artist to look across the table curiously at the girl. So far as he could do so without rudeness, the physician studied his neighbor.