ck by the curious unconcern shown by the
relatives of the patients, and even by the patients themselves. In only
one case, and that of a child suffering from a bad case of measles, was
much interest evinced. The majority of the patients were the very old
and middle-aged, and they discussed, and heard discussed, their symptoms
with much the same attitude as they might have discussed the mechanism
of a wooden doll. If any emotion was shown it was that of a singular
inverted pride. "I had a terrible night, doctor," said one old woman,
and a smirk of self-conceit was over her ancient face. "Yes, mother
_did_ have an awful night," said her married daughter with a triumphant
expression. Even the children clustering about the doctor looked
unconsciously proud because their old grandmother had had an awful
night. The call of the two doctors at the house was positively
hilarious. Quantities of old apple-jack were forced upon them. The old
woman in the adjoining bedroom, although she was evidently suffering,
kept calling out a feeble joke in her cackling old voice.

"Those people seem positively elated because that old soul is sick,"
said James when he and the doctor were again in the buggy.

"They are," said Doctor Gordon, "even the old woman herself, who knows
well enough that she has not long to live. Did you ever think that the
desire of distinction was one of the most, perhaps the most, intense
purely spiritual emotion of the human soul? Look at the way these people
live here, grubbing away at the soil like ants. The most of them have in
their lives just three ways of attracting notice, the momentary
consideration of their kind: birth, marriage, sickness and death. With
the first they are hardly actively concerned, even with the second many
have nothing to do. There are more women than men as usual, and although
the women want to marry, all the men do not. There remains only sickness
and death for a stand-by, so to speak. If one of them is really sick and
dies, the people are aroused to take notice. The sick person and the
corpse have a certain state and dignity which they have never attained
before. Why, bless you, man, I have one patient, a middle-aged woman,
who has been laid up for years with rheumatism, and she is fairly
vainglorious, and so is her mother. She brags of her invalid daughter.
If she had been merely an old maid on her hands, she would have been
ashamed of her, and the woman herself would have been sour and