“Oh!” gasped Darcy, turning fiery red, for it is one of our paradoxical conventions that a young lady may discuss the inside of her stomach without shame, but not the outside. Mr. Dunne regarded the blush with disfavor. “Look-a-here,” he said bluntly. “Yah, needn’t get rattled.” “But—I—I—didn’t—” “Cut the school-girl stuff. Yah’r my pupil. I’m yahr trainer. That’s all there is _to_ it, if we’re going to get along comfortable. Get me?” “Yes,” said Darcy. “I won’t be silly again. And I’ll try and mind the diet.” Vastly to her surprise and gratification, the neophyte arose on the following morning without severe symptoms of lameness. Here and there an unsuspected muscle had awakened to life and to mild protest over the resurrection. But on the whole Darcy felt none the worse for her experience. She began to surmise that she was one of that physically blessed class, a born athlete. If beauty, vigor, and health were to be achieved at no harder a price than this, they were almost like a gift of the good fairies. The only unusual phenomena she observed as a result of her introspection were a lack of interest in her food, which she set down to the discredit of the diet, and a tendency to fall asleep over her work. She went to bed early that night, quite looking forward to the morrow’s exercise. Nature has a stock practical joke which she plays on the physically negligent when they begin training. Instead of inflicting muscular remorse on the morning after, she lets the bill run for another twenty-four hours and then pounces upon the victim with an astounding accumulation of painful arrears. Opening her eyes on that second day after Mr. Dunne’s mild but sufficient schedule—the one muscular movement she was able to make without acute agony—Darcy became cognizant that every hinge in her body had rusted. She attempted to swing her legs out of bed, and stuck, with her feet projecting out from the clothes, paralyzed and groaning. From the bedroom next to Darcy’s alcove, Helen Barrett heard the sounds of lamentation and tottered drowsily in. “What ever is the matter, Darcy?” “I can’t get up” moaned the victim. “What is it? Are you ill?” “No! No! I’m all right. Only—” “Get your legs back in bed.” The kindly Helen thrust back the protruding limbs, thereby wringing from the sufferer a muffled shriek which brought Maud Raines to the scene. “It’s rheumatism, I think,” explained Helen to the newcomer. “Or else paralysis.” “It isn’t,” denied Darcy indignantly. “What is it, then?” Racked by all manner of darting pains and convulsive cramps, Darcy began the cautious process of emerging from bed. “Do be good—ugh!” she implored. “And don’t—ooch!—ask questions—and draw me a boiling hot bath—ow-w-w!—and help me into it—oh-h-h-h—_dear!_”