luded that his wife was in fault; and he was just beginning, in an
awful voice, "Anastasie----," when she looked up at him, smiling, with an
upraised finger; and he held his peace, wondering, while she led the boy
to his attic.

CHAPTER IV

THE EDUCATION OF A PHILOSOPHER

The installation of the adopted stable-boy was thus happily effected, and
the wheels of life continued to run smoothly in the Doctor's house.
Jean-Marie did his horse and carriage duty in the morning; sometimes
helped in the housework; sometimes walked abroad with the Doctor, to
drink wisdom from the fountainhead; and was introduced at night to the
sciences and the dead tongues. He retained his singular placidity of mind
and manner; he was rarely in fault; but he made only a very partial
progress in his studies, and remained much of a stranger in the family.

The Doctor was a pattern of regularity. All forenoon he worked on his
great book, the "Comparative Pharmacopoeia, or Historical Dictionary of
all Medicines," which as yet consisted principally of slips of paper and
pins. When finished, it was to fill many personable volumes, and to
combine antiquarian interest with professional utility. But the Doctor
was studious of literary graces and the picturesque; an anecdote, a touch
of manners, a moral qualification, or a sounding epithet was sure to be
preferred before a piece of science; a little more, and he would have
written the "Comparative Pharmacopoeia" in verse! The article "Mummia,"
for instance, was already complete, though the remainder of the work had
not progressed beyond the letter A. It was exceedingly copious and
entertaining, written with quaintness and colour, exact, erudite, a
literary article; but it would hardly have afforded guidance to a
practising physician of to-day. The feminine good sense of his wife had
led her to point this out with uncompromising sincerity; for the
Dictionary was duly read aloud to her, betwixt sleep and waking, as it
proceeded towards an infinitely distant completion; and the Doctor was a
little sore on the subject of mummies, and sometimes resented an allusion
with asperity.

After the midday meal and a proper period of digestion, he walked,
sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by Jean-Marie; for madame would
have preferred any hardship rather than walk.

She was, as I have said, a very busy person, continually occupied about
material comforts, and ready to drop asleep over a novel the i