"All, before I'm snatched up, Miss Raleigh. Don't you have anything to do with me, madam. Follow your nephew's lead, and take to gardening-- There is medicine in the scent of the newly turned earth, in the air you breathe, and in the exercise, that will do you more good than any drugs I can prescribe." "There you are, aunt; pay up." "Pay up? Bless the boy! what do you mean?" said Aunt Sophia. "A guinea. Physician's fee." "Stuff and nonsense!" said Aunt Sophia.--"But I don't want to be rude to you, Doctor Scales, and I think it's worth the guinea far more than many a fee I've paid for what has done me no good." "I've got a case in hand," said the doctor, going on with his dinner, but finding time to talk. "I've a poor creature suffering from nervous shock. Fine-looking, gentlemanly fellow as you'd wish to see, but completely off his balance." "Bless the man! don't talk about mad people," said Aunt Sophia. "No, ma'am, I will not. He's as sane as you are," said the doctor; "but his nerve is gone, he dare not trust himself outside the house; he cannot, do the slightest calculation--write a letter--give a decisive answer. He would not take the shortest journey, or see any one on business. In fact, though he could do all these things as well as any of us, he doesn't, and, paradoxical as it may sound, can't." "But why not?" said Scarlett. "Why not? Because his nerve has gone, he dare not sleep without some one in the next room. He could not bear to be in the dark. He cannot trust himself to do a single thing for fear he should do it wrong, or go anywhere lest some terrible accident should befall him." "What a dreadful man!" cried Aunt Sophia. "Not at all, my dear madam; he's a splendid fellow." "It must be terrible for his poor wife, Doctor Scales." "No, ma'am, it is not, because he has no wife; but it is very trying to his sweet sister." "I say, hark at that," said Scarlett, merrily--"`his sweet sister.' Ahem, Jack! In confidence, eh?" "What do you mean?" cried the doctor, as the ladies smiled. "I say--you know--his sweet sister. Is that the immortal she?" "What? My choice? Ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha?" laughed the doctor, with enjoyable mirth. "No, no; I'm cut out for a bachelor. No wedding for me. Bah! what's a poor doctor to do with a wife! No, sir; no, sir. I'm going to preserve myself free of domestic cares for the benefit of all who may seek my aid." "Well, for my part," said Aunt Sophia, "I think it must be a very terrible case." "Terrible, my dear madam." "But you will be able to cure him?" "I hope so; but indeed that is all I can say. Such cases as this puzzle the greatest men." "I suppose," said Arthur Prayle, in a smooth bland voice, "that you administer tonic medicines--quinine and iron and the like?" "O yes," said the doctor grimly. "That's exactly what we do, and it doesn't cure the patient in the least." "But you give him cold bathing and exercise, doctor?"