ed is for you to take the case in your own hands."

"I don't understand, Doctor."

"I take a sincere interest in you and your husband. If you will let me
talk to you as a friend, and will take my advice, I hope I may do you
much good; but if I am to remain the physician and must confine myself
to writing prescriptions for worthless drugs, I fear the improvement
will be slow."

"Go on, Doctor. I promise to listen," said Marion, prompted more by a
curiosity to hear his advice than by a resolution to follow it.

"I may say some very plain things. Will you promise to take them in the
friendly way in which they are meant?"

"Go on, Doctor. I shall not get angry, I promise you."

The Doctor leaned forward and said, in a more sympathetic manner: "Mrs.
Sanderson, every physician whose patients are drawn from the classes we
call society has to deal with scores of cases precisely like yours. One
of us will administer bromides; another will feed his patients on
extract of beef; another will use electricity; another will recommend
massage, and so on. But all these remedies are fruitless except in so
far as they assist the sufferer to believe that she is improving, or
afford some temporary relief. The disease, if so I may term a depressed
state of the nervous system, is caused by the habits of the patient, and
can only be cured by changing those habits."

"I am not dissipated," said Marion somewhat resentfully.

"I did not say that, Mrs. Sanderson, but if you desire to get well you
must completely change your mode of life."

"What must I do?"

"I fear you will only laugh when I tell you, and call me a silly old
fool."

"No, I sha'n't; I promise."

"You must go to bed before eleven every night. You must be up by
half-past seven. You must walk or ride every morning, drink no wine,
tea, or coffee, eat plain food, and read no novels. You must develop an
interest in your household affairs, get a wholesome occupation for every
hour of the day, and take no more medicine. When you feel a headache go
into the fresh air; when you feel depressed, throw the mood off by
finding some work to do."

"But, Doctor, I had almost sooner die than do all that. I could never
live in such a routine of the commonplace."

"I know that is very hard, but perhaps it is not all," said the Doctor.
"You have no children, Mrs. Sanderson."

"No, thank heaven. I am worried enough without that."

"Unfortunately we are confronted in this world with