; and a total failure of appetite this morning.
Exactly what happened last year, when I gave up my cigars. The sooner I
am ready for my second dose of laudanum, the better I shall be pleased."

"You shall have it on the earliest possible day," I answered. "In the
meantime, we must be as careful of your health as we can. If we allow
you to become exhausted, we shall fail in that way. You must get an
appetite for your dinner. In other words, you must get a ride or a walk
this morning, in the fresh air."

"I will ride, if they can find me a horse here. By-the-by, I wrote to
Mr. Bruff, yesterday. Have you written to Miss Verinder?"

"Yes--by last night's post."

"Very good. We shall have some news worth hearing, to tell each other
to-morrow. Don't go yet! I have a word to say to you. You appeared to
think, yesterday, that our experiment with the opium was not likely to
be viewed very favourably by some of my friends. You were quite right. I
call old Gabriel Betteredge one of my friends; and you will be amused to
hear that he protested strongly when I saw him yesterday. 'You have done
a wonderful number of foolish things in the course of your life, Mr.
Franklin, but this tops them all!' There is Betteredge's opinion! You
will make allowance for his prejudices, I am sure, if you and he happen
to meet?"

I left Mr. Blake, to go my rounds among my patients; feeling the better
and the happier even for the short interview that I had had with him.

What is the secret of the attraction that there is for me in this man?
Does it only mean that I feel the contrast between the frankly kind
manner in which he has allowed me to become acquainted with him, and the
merciless dislike and distrust with which I am met by other people? Or
is there really something in him which answers to the yearning that I
have for a little human sympathy--the yearning, which has survived the
solitude and persecution of many years; which seems to grow keener and
keener, as the time comes nearer and nearer when I shall endure and feel
no more? How useless to ask these questions! Mr. Blake has given me a
new interest in life. Let that be enough, without seeking to know what
the new interest is.

June 17th.--Before breakfast, this morning, Mr. Candy informed me that
he was going away for a fortnight, on a visit to a friend in the south
of England. He gave me as many special directions, poor fellow, about
the patients, as if he still had the large practi