dows only deepen those other shadows which lie on the
ailing spirit. But this same darkness mercifully conceals the long line
of ash-coloured family portraits in gold frames, the ash-coloured carpet
and chandelier, and the hideous aggregation of ash-coloured couches and
chairs which make up the daylight picture. Why doctors' reception rooms
should always so strongly combine the attractiveness of a popular
lunch-room on a rainy day with the quiet domestic atmosphere of a county
jail, I have never been able to find out, unless the object is to reduce
the patient to such a horrible state of depression that the mere summons
to enter the doctor's presence makes one feel very much better already.
There are times when to be told that one has pneumonia or an incipient
case of tuberculosis must be a relief after an hour spent in one of
those dreadful ante-chambers.

The literature in a physician's waiting-room is not exhilarating.
Usually, there is an extensive collection of periodicals four months old
and over. From this I gather that physicians' wives and daughters are
persistent but somewhat deliberate readers of current literature. The
sense of age about the magazines on a doctor's table is heightened by
the absence of the front and back covers. The only way of ascertaining
the date of publication is to hunt for the table of contents. That,
however, is a task which few able-bodied men in the prime of life are
equal to, not to say a roomful of sick people, nervous with
anticipation. Most patients under such circumstances set out
courageously, but only to lose themselves in the first half-dozen pages
of the advertising section. Yet the result is by no means harmful. There
is something about the advertising agent's buoyant, insinuating,
sympathetic tone that is very restful to the invalid nerves. Harrington
tells me that the small suburban house in which he lives, the paint and
roofing with which he protects it against the weather, the lawn-mower
which he has secured in anticipation of a good crop of grass, and the
small stock of poultry he experiments with, were all acquired through
advertisements read in doctors' waiting-rooms. Some physicians take in
the illustrated weeklies as well as the monthly magazines. In one of the
former I found the other day an excellent panoramic view of the second
inauguration of President McKinley.

But I am afraid I have wandered somewhat from what I set out to say. I
meant to show how differen