rue condition of the patient. In this finer,
subtler diagnosis of general conditions, especially of moral conditions,
Mrs. Smailli is worth more than all the doctors in Canada put together.
If she says a patient will get well, he always does, and _vice versa_.
She knows where the real possibility of recuperation lies, and detects
it often in patients I despair of."

XV.

And now this story must again pass over a period of ten years in the
history of Eben and Hetty Williams. During all these years, Hetty had
been working faithfully in St. Mary's; and Dr. Eben had been working
faithfully in Welbury. Hetty was now fifty-six years old. Her hair was
white, and clustered round her temples in a rim of snowy curls, peeping
out from under the close lace cap she always wore. But the snowy curls
were hardly less becoming than the golden brown ones had been. Her
cheeks were still pink, and her lips red. She looked far less old for
her age at fifty-six than she had looked ten years before.

Dr. Eben, on the other hand, had grown old fast. His work had not been
to him as complete and healthful occupation as Hetty's had been to her.
He had lived more within himself; and he had never ceased to sorrow. His
sorrow, being for one dead, was without hope; save that intangible hope
to which our faith so pathetically clings, of the remote and undefined
possibilities of eternity. Hetty's sorrow was full of hope, being
persuaded that all was well with those whom she did not see.

Dr. Eben loved no one warmly or with absorption. Hetty loved every
suffering one to whom she ministered. Dr. Eben had never ceased living
too much in the past. Hetty had learned to live almost wholly in the
present. Hetty had suffered, had suffered intensely; but all that she
had suffered was as nothing in comparison with the sufferings of her
husband. Moreover, Hetty had kept through all these years her superb
health. Dr. Eben had had severe illnesses, which had told heavily upon
his strength. From all these things it had come to pass, that now he
looked older and more worn than Hetty. She looked vigorous; he looked
feeble; she was still comely, he had lost all the fineness of color
and outline, which had made him at forty so handsome a man. He had been
growing restless, too, and discontented.

Raby was away at college; old Caesar and Nan had both died, and their
places were filled by new white servants, who, though they served Dr.
Eben well, did not love h