ls. A doctor has no business with 'em.
Don't you remember what they did for Jones at Bartholomew's?"

"I don't remember Jones at Bartholomew's," frigidly returned the doctor.

"No! Why, what's gone with your memory?" innocently asked Jan. "If you
think a bit, you'll recollect about him, and what his end was. Bills
did it; the signing of bills to oblige some friend. I'll never sign a
bill, doctor. I wouldn't do it for my own mother."

Thus the doctor's expectations were put a final end to, so far as Jan
went--and very certain expectations they had, no doubt, been. As to Jan,
a thought may have crossed him that the doctor and his daughter Sibylla
appeared to have the same propensity for getting out of money. Dr. West
recovered his equanimity, and magnanimously waived the affair as a
trifle not worth dwelling on.

"How does Cheese get on?" he asked.

"First rate--in the eating line," replied Jan.

"Have you got him out of his idleness yet?"

"It would take a more clever man than I to do that, doctor. It's
constitutional. When he goes up to London, in the autumn, I shall take
an assistant: unless you should be coming home yourself."

"I have no intention of it at present, Mr. Jan. Am I to understand you
that Sibylla has serious symptoms of disease?"

"There's no doubt of it," said Jan. "You always prophesied it for her,
you know. When she was at Verner's Pride she was continually ailing: not
a week passed but I was called in to attend her. She was so imprudent
too--she _would_ be. Going out and getting her feet wet; sitting up half
the night. We tried to bring her to reason; but it was of no use. She
defied Lionel; she would not listen to me--as well speak to a post."

"Why should she defy her husband? Are they on bad terms?"

"They are on as good terms as any man and wife could be, Sibylla being
the wife," was Jan's rejoinder. "You know something of her temper and
disposition, doctor--it is of no use to mince matters--you remember how
it had used to be with her here at home. Lionel's a husband in a
thousand. How he can possibly put up with her, and be always patient and
kind, puzzles me more than any problem ever did in Euclid. If Fred had
lived--why, he'd have broken her spirit or her heart long before this."

Dr. West rose and stretched himself. The failings of Sibylla were not a
pleasant topic, thus openly mentioned by Jan; but none knew better than
the doctor how true were the grounds on which he spoke. Non