have a way of living through everything, and
I know the other set that have the trick of dying without any kind of
reason for it. I know the years when the fevers and dysenteries are in
earnest, and when they're only making believe. I know the folks that
think they're dying as soon as they're sick, and the folks that never
find out they 're sick till they're dead. I don't want to undervalue
your science, Mr. Langdon. There are things I never learned, because
they came in after my day, and I am very glad to send my patients to
those that do know them, when I am at fault; but I know these people
about here, fathers and mothers, and children and grandchildren, so
as all the science in the world can't know them, without it takes time
about it, and sees them grow up and grow old, and how the wear and tear
of life comes to them. You can't tell a horse by driving him once, Mr.
Langdon, nor a patient by talking half an hour with him."

"Do you know much about the Veneer family?" said Mr. Bernard, in a
natural way enough, the Doctor's talk having suggested the question.

The Doctor lifted his head with his accustomed movement, so as to
command the young man through his spectacles.

"I know all the families of this place and its neighborhood," he
answered.

"We have the young lady studying with us at the Institute," said Mr.
Bernard.

"I know it," the Doctor answered. "Is she a good scholar?"

All this time the Doctor's eyes were fixed steadily on Mr. Bernard,
looking through the glasses.

"She is a good scholar enough, but I don't know what to make of her.
Sometimes I think she is a little out of her head. Her father, I
believe, is sensible enough;--what sort of a woman was her mother,
Doctor?--I suppose, of course, you remember all about her?"

"Yes, I knew her mother. She was a very lovely young woman."--The Doctor
put his hand to his forehead and drew a long breath.--"What is there you
notice out of the way about Elsie Venner?"

"A good many things," the master answered. "She shuns all the other
girls. She is getting a strange influence over my fellow-teacher, a
young lady,--you know Miss Helen Darley, perhaps? I am afraid this girl
will kill her. I never saw or heard of anything like it, in prose at
least;--do you remember much of Coleridge's Poems, Doctor?"

The good old Doctor had to plead a negative.

"Well, no matter. Elsie would have been burned for a witch in old times.
I have seen the girl look at Miss D