no foreign novelist
will be admitted) must understand his art as the healthy-minded English
reader understands it in our time. He must know that our purer modern
taste, our higher modern morality, limits him to doing exactly
two things for us, when he writes us a book. All we want of him
is--occasionally to make us laugh; and invariably to make us
comfortable."

There was a third stir among the visitors--caused plainly this time by
approval of the sentiments which they had just heard. The doctor, wisely
cautious of disturbing the favorable impression that he had produced,
dropped the subject of the drawing-room, and led the way upstairs. As
before, the company followed; and, as before, Miss Gwilt walked silently
behind them, last of all. One after another the ladies looked at her
with the idea of speaking, and saw something in her face, utterly
unintelligible to them, which checked the well-meant words on their
lips. The prevalent impression was that the Principal of the Sanitarium
had been delicately concealing the truth, and that his first inmate was
mad.

The doctor led the way--with intervals of breathing-time accorded to the
old lady on his arm--straight to the top of the house. Having collected
his visitors in the corridor, and having waved his hand indicatively
at the numbered doors opening out of it on either side, he invited the
company to look into any or all of the rooms at their own pleasure.

"Numbers one to four, ladies and gentlemen," said the doctor, "include
the dormitories of the attendants. Numbers four to eight are rooms
intended for the accommodation of the poorer class of patients, whom I
receive on terms which simply cover my expenditure--nothing more. In
the cases of these poorer persons among my suffering fellow creatures,
personal piety and the recommendation of two clergymen are indispensable
to admission. Those are the only conditions I make; but those I insist
on. Pray observe that the rooms are all ventilated, and the bedsteads
all iron and kindly notice, as we descend again to the second floor,
that there is a door shutting off all communication between the second
story and the top story when necessary. The rooms on the second floor,
which we have now reached, are (with the exception of my own room)
entirely devoted to the reception of lady-inmates--experience having
convinced me that the greater sensitiveness of the female constitution
necessitates the higher position of the sleeping a