“Best of families!” repeated he. “Yes, doctor, not only of the best, but the very best. I pride myself upon my blood. Mine is no upstart claim of a thousand years or so, but, doctor, drawn from the very creation, and transmitted in a stream of pure brilliancy down to me. But, doctor, something has occurred to-day, I fear, which, if it be as my darkest and gloomiest thoughts suggest, will prove my death, bring ruin and disgrace upon my house, and extinguish the ancient torch of the Subsequents like a farthing dip. I have looked over my list of ancestors, from the creation up, and find to my ineffable horror not one of them ever died with any but a noble and kingly disease. I know I have received the stream in all its pristine purity--and oh, doctor, on your honour as a man, on the awful sanctity of your calling, never reveal to mortal the terrible disclosure I am about to make. Doctor Tensas, I fear my eldest born has got--faugh! I sicken at the thought--the chill and fever! Oh, Lord, terrible! awful! horrible! Is it not enough to madden a man, to think, after having only noble diseases in his family, for twenty thousand years at least, that a cursed, plebeian, vulgar disease, which every negro and low poor man can have, should dare present itself in the habitation of aristocratic and kingly affections. Doctor, if it be as I fear, I shall go deranged! I shall die! I will disinherit the rascal! He shall change his name! To think of gout, king's evil, humpback, and their royal brethren, to attest my purity of blood, and then for chi--faugh! it is too horrible to be true! Go, doctor, examine him. Heaven grant my fears may be groundless, or I shall certainly die. I cannot survive the disgrace.” Going into the room where the patient lay, I examined him, and sure enough chill and fever _was there_ in all its perfection. Fearing the effect the revelation might have upon the Major, I attempted a pious fraud, and blundered out something about its being a strange, singular, and anomalous affection, not laid down in the books--never had seen anything like it before. Certainly not chill and fever, though even if it were--ha! ha!--it was still a disease, though debased very much in modern times, I must confess, not to be looked on with coolness, as James the Second and Oliver Cromwell were said to have died of it. “Doctor Tensas, don't deceive me,” said the Major. I assured him that I did not--that his son had not the chill and fever. I was not fully assured of the nature of his disease, but he might rest easy, as far as ague was concerned. Reassured and comforted by my positive declaration and manner, the Major heaved a deep sigh of relief, and asked me to stay all night. I would have assented, but my old sorrel, remembering his well filled trough at home, and fearing some such arrangement, put in an impatient and positive nay, and I departed.