en asked to prescribe
for her, nor even to give counsel as a supernumerary or consulting
physician. Dr. M. paid her his weekly and semi-weekly visits, and
doubtless supposed all the wisdom of the world added to his own would
hardly improve her condition. I was, of course, by all the rules of
medical etiquette, and even by the common law of politeness, obliged to
bite my lips in silence. One thing, indeed, I ventured to do, which was
to send her a small tract or two, in some of the departments of hygiene
or health.

Soon after this her physician died; and died, too, by his own
confession, publicly made, of stomach disease,--at least, in part. He
was a man of gigantic body and great natural physical force. His
digestive apparatus was particularly powerful, and it had been both
unwisely cultivated and developed in early life, and unwisely and
wickedly managed afterward. For an example of the latter, he would,
while abroad among his patients, sometimes go without his dinner, and
then, on his return to his family and just as he was going to bed, atone
for past neglect by eating enough for a whole day, and of the most solid
and perhaps indigestible food. In this and other abusive ways he had
been suicidal.

But he was now gone to his final account, and on whose arm could Mary
lean for medical advice? Her parents were too poor to pay a physician's
bill. What had been paid to her former medical attendant--which, indeed
was but a mere pittance--was by authority of the town. Mary felt all the
delicacy she should have felt, in her circumstances, and perhaps more,
for she refused for some time to ask for farther aid, preferring to
groan her way alone.

One evening, when I was present on a moral errand, she spoke of the
great benefit she had derived from the perusal of the little books I had
sent her, and modestly observed that, deprived as she was by the wise
dispensation of Providence, of her old friend and physician, she had
sometimes dared to wish she could occasionally consult me. I told her I
hoped she would not hesitate a moment to send for me, whenever she
desired, for if in a situation to comply with her requests, I would
always do so immediately. She was about to speak of her poverty, when I
begged her not to think of that. The only condition I should impose, I
told her, was that she should do her very best to follow, implicitly, my
directions. With this condition she did not hesitate to promise a full
and joyful compl