ouse, swears by him, and talks of him; so does Lady
Cicely Munster, late Treherne; and when such friends as these are warm,
it makes a physician the centre of an important clientele; but his
best friend of all is his unflagging industry, and his truly wonderful
diagnosis, which resembles divination. He has the ball at his feet, and
above all, that without which worldly success soon palls, a happy home,
a fireside warm with sympathy.

Mrs. Staines is an admiring, sympathizing wife, and an admirable
housekeeper. She still utters inadvertencies now and then, commits new
errors at odd times, but never repeats them when exposed. Observing
which docility, Uncle Philip has been heard to express a fear that,
in twenty years, she will be the wisest woman in England. "But, thank
heaven!" he adds, "I shall be gone before that."

Her conduct and conversation afford this cynic constant food for
observation; and he has delivered himself oracularly at various stages
of the study: but I cannot say that his observations, taken as a whole,
present that consistency which entitles them to be regarded as a body
of philosophy. Examples: In the second month after Mrs. Staines came to
live with him, he delivered himself thus: "My niece Rosa is an anomaly.
She gives you the impression she is shallow. Mind your eye: in one
moment she will take you out of your depth or any man's depth. She is
like those country streams I used to fish for pike when I was young;
you go along, seeing the bottom everywhere; but presently you come to
a corner, and it is fifteen deep all in a moment, and souse you go over
head and ears: that's my niece Rosa."

In six months he had got to this--and, mind you, each successive dogma
was delivered in a loud, aggressive tone, and in sublime oblivion of the
preceding oracle--"My niece Rosa is the most artful woman. (You may haw!
haw! haw! as much as you like. You have not found out her little game--I
have.) What is the aim of all women? To be beloved by an unconscionable
number of people. Well, she sets up for a simpleton, and so disarms all
the brilliant people, and they love her. Everybody loves her. Just you
put her down in a room with six clever women, and you will see who is
the favorite. She looks as shallow as a pond, and she is as deep as the
ocean."

At the end of the year he threw off the mask altogether. "The great
sweetener of a man's life," said he, "is 'a simpleton.' I shall not go
abroad any more; my house