At the time appointed, I went to my friend’s house and was introduced to this “show-case.” What I saw was a lady manifestly suffering from severe nervous exhaustion. The strained expression of her face was sufficient evidence of mental fatigue; her attitude indicated bodily fatigue. Her voice and manner betrayed a total lack of the energy and elasticity that distinguish persons of her sanguine temperament when in good health, and it was evident that continuous conversation was trying to her in the extreme. I talked with her for a few minutes, refraining from asking direct questions. She readily informed me that she was undoubtedly cured by the treatment she had recently undergone; that, though the massage was very painful, she had greatly benefited by it; that she had been unable to stir off her couch before undergoing it, but that she had now returned to ordinary life, and was doing in all things as ordinary people did. All I can say is, I am very sorry for ordinary people. She seemed anxious to impress upon me the fact of her having had a real illness, and not a fanciful illness; little knowing that at that moment I was wondering at the strange fancies of those who could imagine such a miserable invalid to be well. She ended by informing me triumphantly that she was able to walk--how far do you think? Ten miles? Five miles? No, not even one mile. This supposed convalescent--this “show-case”--was able to drag herself _exactly half-a-mile_; that is to say, if she rested on a seat half-way--and she was unmistakably done up at the end of it. And this was the result of paying from ten to twenty guineas a week for a couple of months! I ascertained afterwards, on closer inquiry, that the poor lady was still weak and poorly in the opinion of unbiassed friends, but that her doctor and nurse had treated her as if she were very fussy, and as if the thing to be done was to cure her of her fancies. But there was little need to tell me so: she was so evidently ashamed of ever having been ill at all. Why can it not be honestly recognised that a young woman who is too weak to walk five miles, and chat with her friends afterwards without over-fatigue, is in an unsatisfactory state of health; and that a young lady who cannot walk half-a-mile without betraying, in spite of herself, symptoms of nervous exhaustion, is in a most dangerous and alarming state of health, and should at once be prevented from fatiguing herself further, lest she should either die of nervous prostration (failure of the heart’s action is, I believe, the polite name for this mode of making our exit), or lest she should fall a prey to one or other of the many forms of disease which are apt to attack weak women?