a certain amount of
worry. I think experience proves that it is better to accept the worries
nature intended than to create worse ones by trying to circumvent her.
However, I see you weary of my preaching. Think it over until Monday,
and then I shall give you some more advice provided you think your
nerves can bear it."

"You are just as bad as Dr. Thompson."

"Only I have no choir boys and spring bonnets to attract an audience,"
replied the Doctor, rising to leave. Then he continued in a different
tone: "I trust you will pardon what I have said, and even if you don't
follow my disagreeable _regime_, I want you to feel that I gave you the
best advice that I could."

The Doctor bade her good-by, and when he was gone she buried her face in
the pillows and thought over what he had said. "I never could do all
that," she thought; "besides, he is a perfect crank on fresh air and
diet. If I thought Roswell would let me, I would go to someone else. I
think he is too old to be up with the times, and Mrs. Smythe says Dr.
Wimbleton is a perfect dear and helped her from the first day she went
to him. O, my poor head, how it does ache!" she called out, half
expecting sympathy from the oak book-shelves and the bric-a-brac; then
she turned over nervously and continued her restless thinking. "I wish I
were dead," she moaned. "So little comes into my life that living it is
scarcely worth the trouble. If there were only someone to bring me
sympathy. If I could only forget those days when, for a few moments, I
felt as other women feel."

Florence came into the room again and Marion, hearing her step, looked
up. "Is it you?" she said.

"Yes," answered Florence; "I heard the Doctor go out so I thought I
would come back. What did he say?"

"O, a lot of nonsense which I really did not listen to. He ought to do
more to cure me and talk less. In fact, I think his personality
exasperates me, and I am afraid I shall have to change physicians if I
want to get any better."

"Poor Dr. Maccanfrae," said Florence. "He is the dearest, kindest, best
intentioned man in the world. Think of the good he does among the poor."

"O, I know all about that, but that's no reason why he should lecture me
like a child about going to bed early and taking exercise."

"Perhaps he believes more in such medicine than in drugs. Don't you
think yourself that it is some such _regime_ that you need?"

"Don't you begin to lecture me, too," said Marion, with a sig