make them, only on
condition that my fair patient was to walk with me every day
six times around the garden of her hotel; for I guessed she
was too indolent to persevere in taking exercise if left to
herself.

"The system I pursued with her succeeded perfectly. I was
then a very active man, and I walked so fast that I left the
Duchesse every day when our promenade ended bathed in a
copious perspiration; which, aided by the medicine and
sparing _regime_, soon restored her figure to its former
symmetry.

"At her hotel, I daily met ladies of the highest rank and
distinction, many of whom were suffering from a similar
cause, the same annoyance for which the Duchesse consulted
me; and I then discovered that there is no malady, however
grave, so distressing to your sex, ladies, or for the cure of
which they are so willing to submit to the most disagreeable
_regime_, as for aught that impairs their personal beauty.

"When her female friends saw the improvement effected in the
appearance of the Duchesse by my treatment, I was consulted
by them all, and my fame and fortune rapidly increased. I was
proclaimed to be the most wonderful physician, and to have
effected the most extraordinary cures; when, in truth, I but
consulted Nature, and aided her efforts.

"Shortly after this period, a grand lady, an acquaintance of
one of my many patients among the _noblesse_, consulted me;
and here the case was wholly different to that of the
Duchesse, for this lady had grown so thin, that
wrinkles--those most frightful of all symptoms of decaying
beauty--had made their appearance. My new patient told me
that, hearing that hitherto my great celebrity had been
acquired by the cure of obesity, she feared it was useless to
consult me for a disease of so opposite a nature, but even
still more distressing.

"I inquired into her habits and _regime_. Found that she took
violent exercise; was abstemious at table; drank strong green
tea, and coffee without cream or milk; disliked nutritious
food; and, though she sat up late, was an early riser. I
ordered her the frequent use of warm baths, and to take all
that I had prohibited the Duchesse; permitted only gentle
exercise in a carriage; and, in short, soon succeeded in
rendering the thin lady