s a very pretty girl, handsomely
dressed; she had large blue eyes, and a very gentle and sweet expression,
tinged, however, by an anxious sadness.

"Who is sick, Miss Dora?" asked the doctor, quickly, as he shook
hands with her.

She did not seem to understand him. "Nobody," she said. "That is, I have
come to see you about myself."

"Oh," said he, "pray take a seat. I imagined from your face," he
continued, with a smile, "that some one of your family was in desperate
need of a doctor."

"No," said she, "it is I. For a long time I have thought of consulting
you, and to-day I felt I must come."

"And what is the matter?" he asked.

"Doctor," said she, a tear forcing itself into each of her beautiful
eyes, "I believe I am losing my mind."

"Indeed," said the doctor; "and how is your general health?"

"Oh, that's all right," answered Miss Dora. "I do not think there is the
least thing the matter with me that way. It is all my mind. It has been
failing me for a good while."

"How?" he asked. "What are the symptoms?"

"Oh, there are ever so many of them," she said; "I can't think of them
all. I have lost all interest in everything in this world. You remember
how much interest I used to take in things?"

"Indeed I do," said he.

"The world is getting to be all a blank to me," she said; "everything
is blank."

"Your meals?" he asked.

"No," she said. "Of course I must eat to live."

"And sleep?"

"Oh, I sleep well enough. Indeed, I wish I could sleep all the time, so
that I could not know how the world--at least its pleasures and
affections--are passing away from me. All this is dreadful, doctor, when
you come to think of it. I have thought and thought and thought about it,
until it has become perfectly plain to me that I am losing my mind."

Dr. Tolbridge looked into the fire.

"Well," said he, presently, "I am glad to hear it."

Miss Dora sprang to her feet.

"Oh, sit down," said he, "and let me explain myself. My advice is, if you
lose your mind, don't mind the loss. It really will do you good. That
sounds hard and cruel, doesn't it? But wait a bit. It often happens that
the minds of young people are like their first teeth--what are called
milk teeth, you know. These minds and these teeth do very well for a
time, but after a while they become unable to perform the services which
will be demanded of them, and they are shed, or at least they ought to
be. Sometimes, of course, they have to be extracte