s.
Miller's lip. And then, again, it burns and itches and smarts, just as
people say cancers always do."

"How long have you been troubled with it?"

"It is three months or more since I first observed it; but it has given
me very little uneasiness or trouble till within a few weeks."

"What have you done for it?"

"It would take a long time to tell you of all I have done for it. Every
thing I could hear of, far or near, has been applied; from plasters of
clay and chalk, to plasters of vitriol and other poisonous things. But I
have used most a plaster made of chalk and the white of an egg. I do not
know that any thing I have done has benefited it."

"Perhaps you have not persevered in the use of any thing long enough.
How long is it, pray, since you began to use the chalk and egg plaster?"

"Oh, it is three weeks, or more."

"And how long is it usual to wear it? do you know?"

"Mrs. Lovejoy, who advised it, only said, 'Use it as long as it appears
to do good.'"

"Is it a favorite remedy with her?"

"Very much so."

"Has any one been really cured by it?"

"Oh, yes. Mr. Browning, the gardener, was entirely cured by it; so, at
least, people say."

"Any one else?"

"Yes, half a hundred or more have tried it."

"But how many have been cured by it? That is my main inquiry."

"That I cannot tell you. I have heard of no positive cure but that of
Mr. Browning."

"It is almost incredible, my dear sir, that any thing like fifty cases
can have come within such a small range of population as the village or
even the town in which Mrs. Lovejoy resides. Do you mean as you say?"

"Well, then, a great many. I know of a dozen, most certainly; and I have
heard of a great many more. I venture, at least, to say twenty."

"And you have no positive knowledge of but one permanent cure among them
all?"

"Only one, I meant to say, that I can call by name. There must be many
more, I am sure, but I have not their names."

"Have you much confidence in a method of treatment that succeeds once in
fifty times, or even once in twenty?"

"Not much, I confess; but if it now and then succeed, that is something.
You know that they who run in a race _all_ run, though but one receives
the prize."

"Are you quite sure there _is_ any gain or prize, after all?"

"Do you mean to ask if I believe Mr. Browning was really cured?"

"Yes."

"How could I doubt what I have seen and known?"

"I do not expect you will doubt the existence