"
This put me at ease, and I forgot all about my dress in a moment.
"I see you are just what the doctor boasted you were," she went on.
"But he never would bring you to see me before. I suppose he has told
you why I could not go to see you?"
"To tell the truth, he never speaks to me of his patients unless he
thinks I can be of use to them."
"I dare say I do not look much like an invalid," said she; "but here
I am, tied to this chair. It is six months since I could bear my own
weight upon my feet."
I saw then that though her face was so bright and full of color, her
hand was thin and transparent. But what a picture she made as she sat
there in magnificent beauty, relieved by such a back-ground of
foliage, flowers, and artistic objects!
"I told the doctor the other day that life was nothing but a humbug,
and he said he should bring me a remedy against that false notion the
next time he came, and you, I suppose, are that remedy," she
continued. "Come, begin; I am ready to take any number of doses."
I could only laugh and try to look daggers at Ernest, who sat looking
over a magazine, apparently absorbed in its contents.
"Ah!" she cried, nodding her head sagaciously, "I knew you would
agree with me."
"Agree with you in calling life a humbug!" I cried, now fairly
aroused. "Death itself is not more a reality!"
"I have not tried death yet," she said, more seriously; "but I have
tried life twenty-five years and I know all about it.
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