He remounted his horse, and rode out of the village by the main road, to draw rein at a pretty ivy-covered villa, whose well-kept garden and general aspect betokened wealth and some refinement. "Mrs Berens at home?" he asked, as the drag at a bell sent a silvery tinkle through the house. The neat maid-servant drew back with a smile, and the doctor entered, and was shown into a pretty drawing-room, where he stood beating his boot with his riding-whip, and looking scornfully at the ornaments, lace, and gimcracks around. CHAPTER SEVEN. A FRESH PATIENT. "I always feel like a fly," the doctor muttered--"a fly alighted upon a spider's web. The widow wants a husband. I wish some one would snap her up." "Ah! doctor--at last," said a pleasant voice, which sounded as if it had passed through swan's-down, while a strong odour of violets helped the illusion. "Yes, at last, Mrs Berens," said the doctor, taking the extended, soft, white hand of the pleasant, plump lady of eight-and-thirty or forty, whose whole aspect was suggestive of a very pretty, delicate-skinned baby grown large. "Why, how well you look." "Oh, doctor!" "Indeed you do. Why, from your note I was afraid that you were seriously ill." "And I have been, doctor. In such a low, nervous state. At one time I felt as if I should sink. But"--with a sigh--"I am better now." The lady waved her kerchief towards a chair, and seated herself upon an ottoman, where, in obedience to the suggestion, she once more laid her hand in the doctor's firm white palm, wherein Jonadab Moredock's gnarled, yellow, horny paw had so lately lain: and as the strong fingers closed over the delicate white flesh, and a couple glided to the soft round wrist, the patient sighed. "Oh, doctor, I do feel so safe when you are here. It would be too hard to die so young." The doctor looked up quickly. "Now that's wicked," said the lady reproachfully, "because I said `so young.' Well, I'm not quite forty, and that is young. Is my pulse very rapid?" "No, no. A little accelerated, perhaps. You seem to have been fretting." "Yes, that's it, doctor. I have," said the lady. "What a fool I am!" he said to himself, as he released the hand. Then aloud: "I see, I see. Little mental anxiety. You want tone, Mrs Berens." "Yes, doctor, I do," she sighed. "Now what should you say if I prescribed a complete change?" "A complete change, doctor?" said the lady, whose pulse was now certainly accelerated. "Yes. That will be better than any of my drugs. A pleasant little two months' trip to Baden or Homburg, where you can take the waters and enjoy the fresh air." "Oh, doctor, I could not go alone." "Humph! No. It would be dull. Well, take a companion. Why not one of the parson's sisters? Mary Salis--or, no," he added, quickly, as he recalled certain family troubles that had been rumoured. "Why not Leo Salis?"