e and diligent in the
accumulation of this world's goods. He was successful; and upon the
gains of his prosperous merchandise he retired into the country to live
on his "means." The sudden change from stirring city life into the
retirement and inactivity of a rural home soon began to affect his
health; and not being a man of much education and intelligence, his mind
brooded over himself, until he became nervous and, as he thought, feeble
and delicate. His nervousness failed not to do its duty in his
imagination and fancy; so that, with the two in active working, a
"combination of diseases" gradually took hold of him, and "told
seriously upon his constitution."

Mr. Round, having given up his business in the city, now had a business
with his afflictions in the country. He studied them thoroughly, in
their internal symptoms and external signs. He could have written a
volume of experience as to how he suffered in the head, the nerves, the
stomach, the liver, the lungs, the heart, etc.; how he suffered when
awake and when asleep; how he suffered from taking a particular kind of
food or drink; and how he did not suffer when he did not take a
particular kind of food and drink; how he thought he should have died a
thousand times, under certain circumstances which he would not name.
These things he could have pictured in a most affecting manner to his
reader. But it was not in writing that Mr. Round described his
multitudinous ailments. It was in _talking_. This to him was great
relief. A description of his case to any one who was patient enough to
hear him through did him more good than all the pills and mixtures sent
him by Doctor Green, his medical attendant. This habit of talking about
his sickness became as chronic as the sickness itself. He seemed to know
little of any other subject than the real and imaginary complaints of
his body; at least, he talked about little else. If in conversation he
happened to commence in the spirit, he soon entered into the flesh, and
there he ended. If by an effort of his hearer his attention was diverted
from himself, it would with all the quickness of an elastic bow rebound
to his favourite theme. Out of the sphere of his own "poor body," as he
used to call it, he was no more at home in conversation than a fish
wriggling on the sea-beach.

Mrs. Blunt invited a few friends to spend an evening at her house. The
company was composed mostly of young persons, in whom the flow of life
was stro