rous, physically and mentally, than to
imagine we are not as other people. Strive to consider yourself, not as
Catharine Furze, a young woman apart, but as a piece of common humanity
and bound by its laws. It is infinitely healthier for you. Never, under
any pretext whatever, allow yourself to do what is exceptional. If you
have any originality, it will better come out in an improved performance
of what everybody ought to do, than in the indulgence in singularity. For
one person who, being a person of genius, has been injured by what is
called conventionality--I do not, of course, mean foolish conformity to
what is absurd--thousands have been saved by it, and self-separation
means mischief. It has been the beginning even of insanity in many cases
which have come under my notice." The doctor paused a little.

"I am glad Mrs. Cardew is better," said Catharine. "I did not know she
had been ill."

"There is a woman for you--a really wonderful woman, unobtrusive, devoted
to her husband, almost annihilating herself for him, and, what is very
noteworthy, she denies herself in studies to which she is much attached,
and for which she has a remarkable capacity, merely in order that she may
the better sympathise with him. Then her care of the poor in his parish
makes her almost a divinity to them. While he is luxuriating amongst the
cowslips, in what he calls thinking, she is teaching the sick people
patience and nursing them. She is a saint, and he does not know half her
worth. It would do you a world of good now, Miss Furze, to live with her
for six months if she were alone, but I am not quite sure that his
influence on you would be wholesome. I was alarmed about her, but she
will not die yet if I can help it. I want her to recover for her own
sake, but also for her husband's and for her friends' sake. Perhaps I
was a little too severe upon the husband, for I believe he does really
love her very much; at least, if he does not, he ought."

"Ought? Do you think, Dr. Turnbull, a man ought to love what he cannot
love?"

"Yes, but I must explain myself. I have no patience with people who seem
to consider that they may yield themselves to something they know not
what, and allow themselves to be swayed by it. A man marries a woman
whom he loves. Is it possible that she, of all women in the world, is
the one he would love best if he were to know all of them? Is it likely
that he would have selected this one woman