t it was as useless to fight against the
interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog; and "good fortune"
insisted on using those interpretations.

Mrs. Larcher having just become charitably concerned about alarming
symptoms in her charwoman, when Dr. Minchin called, asked him to see
her then and there, and to give her a certificate for the Infirmary;
whereupon after examination he wrote a statement of the case as one of
tumor, and recommended the bearer Nancy Nash as an out-patient. Nancy,
calling at home on her way to the Infirmary, allowed the stay maker and
his wife, in whose attic she lodged, to read Dr. Minchin's paper, and
by this means became a subject of compassionate conversation in the
neighboring shops of Churchyard Lane as being afflicted with a tumor at
first declared to be as large and hard as a duck's egg, but later in
the day to be about the size of "your fist." Most hearers agreed that
it would have to be cut out, but one had known of oil and another of
"squitchineal" as adequate to soften and reduce any lump in the body
when taken enough of into the inside--the oil by gradually "soopling,"
the squitchineal by eating away.

Meanwhile when Nancy presented herself at the Infirmary, it happened to
be one of Lydgate's days there. After questioning and examining her,
Lydgate said to the house-surgeon in an undertone, "It's not tumor:
it's cramp." He ordered her a blister and some steel mixture, and told
her to go home and rest, giving her at the same time a note to Mrs.
Larcher, who, she said, was her best employer, to testify that she was
in need of good food.

But by-and-by Nancy, in her attic, became portentously worse, the
supposed tumor having indeed given way to the blister, but only
wandered to another region with angrier pain. The staymaker's wife
went to fetch Lydgate, and he continued for a fortnight to attend Nancy
in her own home, until under his treatment she got quite well and went
to work again. But the case continued to be described as one of tumor
in Churchyard Lane and other streets--nay, by Mrs. Larcher also; for
when Lydgate's remarkable cure was mentioned to Dr. Minchin, he
naturally did not like to say, "The case was not one of tumor, and I
was mistaken in describing it as such," but answered, "Indeed! ah! I
saw it was a surgical case, not of a fatal kind." He had been inwardly
annoyed, however, when he had asked at the Infirmary about the woman he
had recommended two days b