on them, I say, with the handiest distaff, and put them to flight with abrasions over the os frontis? No. Instead of that she had to keep weaving away patiently as you and Homer describe it-stupidly as I call it--pretending to every one of the Embêtes that she was head over cars in love with him, and that the affair she was at work at was her trousseau!"

Helen. "My dear Doctor, can't you see the woman's wit in that? She wanted to make all those fellows sick of the idea of marrying her. 'Bless me!' any one of them who saw her weaving might naturally be expected to say, 'Bless me! If this woman takes ten years for her trousseau, what won't it cost to keep her in clothes after we go to housekeeping?' Whereupon, if you knew any thing at all about men, my dear Doctor, you would be sure that they would all take to their heels. Back a vision of bills from Stewart's, Lambert's, Lawson's, Peyser's, Lichtenstein's, and fifty other establishments, against the toughest distaff that ever was twirled. And don't you fancy our Greek grandmothers were so out of the mode that they didn't have those nice little places in Ithaca! That was a quiet woman's trick of Penelope's, I tell you, Dr. Susan."

of that period! Such an excellent crocheter of mats for his festal wine-cup! My! how glad he would be that he had carried you off when he found that what you could do in the way of housekeeping was restricted to sitting on a lion's skin in his tent and imparting an air of sublimity to his ménage! Warriors like such wives-oh yes!"

Dr. Susan. "I had rather know how to do nothing but sit on a lion's skin than to be one of those women to whom the asses of this day, who wear that skin, could make love comfortably! Well, have your own ideas-you're welcome to them. I, rather than be wooed by such a man as would love you and modern women, would fall desperately in love with that inanimate, almost dead man (poor fellow!) on the bed yonder, and be married to him."

Helen. "Who knows but you may, really? It would be such a beautiful judgment on you! Capital! Wouldn't I clap my hands?"

Dr. Susan. "Pshaw! You talk like-" I was equal to a cough. I accomplished it. And both the women started up at once. They listened intently, and fixed a curious, pleased gaze upon me. I repeated the cough, and put my hand over the edge of my bed. I believe I

Dr. Susan. "It doesn't seem to have been a also added, "How late is it?" Whereupon, remarkably successful one, however."

Helen. "Then their love must have been very sincere. Samples of so strong a kind for wear have not come down to our day."

with a countenance quite beautified by its surprise and pleasure, Dr. Susan came to my bedside with one masculine stride and perhaps half another, and without replying, stood gazing into my face, evidently full of an intense satisfaction at my return into the articulate and intelligent world. On the other hand, Helen Talfourd, crimsoning to the roots of the hair at finding herself in the bedchamber, under the mortifying modification of circumstances produced by my being a real live man, ran out as precipiWhy, Susan! much better might I tately as possible, desiring to be excused for a moask you, I think. Could you love?"

Dr. Susan. "Of course they have not! That is just what I always say. Who knows how to love nowadays? Who knows how to hate? Who knows how to feel strongly, think, speak, act strongly in any way? No! it is vulgar to have more vitality than a caterpillar. Heavens! can you could you love, little woman?" Helen. "

ment, and leaving, on my still gelatinous brain, an indescribable mixed, mellifluous, coral and blue-muslin sensation, rather pleasant than oth

Dr. Susan. "I might have done so-some time ago." Helen. "What do you mean-when you were erwise, although agitating. a young girl?"

Dr. Susan. "When the world was! Several thousand years ago, when there were men to be loved! Real, stout, earnest, fighting, love-compelling men. Men who did not care so much about being loved as about being worthy to be yes, and to be adored too. I think I have considerable love somewhere that I could have given to such a person that I can not lay my hand on just now!"

Helen. "Put your palm just over the region of Ideality and you will find it, I think."

Dr. Susan. "You're probably correct. Unfortunately so for me."

The conversation between a patient, restored after a fortnight to his first consciousness, and a physician of any common sense or science, necessarily amounts to very little. Between Dr. Susan and myself it consisted of, "I'm glad to see you better;" my answer a faint "Yes;" and her conclusion with, "Now keep very quiet, and, if possible, go to sleep." Which injunction I was fortunately able to obey in the course of the next ten minutes.

III.-IN THE TUBS.

Put

If the preceding chapters have been dry the present one ought to make up for that fact. This end will be aimed at—perhaps attained— by a brief relation of my water-cure life. on your rubbers and hoist your umbrella, O my reader! and begin splashing through Chapter III.

Helen. "Yes, and for some Ajax, or Achilles, or Götz Von Berlichingen, whom, after he had carried you away struggling on his broad, muscular back, with a black eye as his marriage token from you, you would have made a most excellent, faithful wife. Such a beautiful house- I was well enough (we skip, you see, the first keeper! Such a neat repairer of shirts! few weary days of valetudinarianism) to walk a charming maker of the barbaric sweetmeats from my bed to the bath-room-a distance of

Such

some twenty steps-supported by an orange- tistical tub; a political tub; a tub full of a wood cane on one side, and an equally wooden- deeper philosophy, more caustic sarcasm, more headed but immeasurably kind-hearted Dublin unselfish wisdom than the one which held DiIrishman on the other. In his own country the ogenes. I listen to this tub, and notwithstandlatter was, by his own description, bright, know- ing my poor pulpy brain, learn more of the ing, and “a different b'y intirely," but he had history of my country than I have done from been a hydropathic servant so long that "the many volumes bound with calf instead of hoopwather had all gone to his head," which fact iron. was also related to have "quite mulvathered him," whatever that may be. I sometimes used to think that the water on his brain had a small stick in it—a modification of Hydrocephalus not uncommon. But at any rate I will do Michael the justice to say that he never staggered under the ninety-five pounds of which the typhus fever had left me residuary legatee.

I am in the general bath-room, let it be supposed. This apartment is a square one-or nearly so, twenty feet by twenty-two, let us say-and has a slab floor. You may spill a hogshead of water any where on it, and it will drain out in three seconds. There is a smell of warm, wet wood-an odor as of a whole almanac of Monday mornings condensed into one blissful moment by some hydraulic press-and this smell, together with a slow-rising mist which addresses itself to sight, has not ceased night or day for many years.

I am in this bath-room, I say. I am taking what is called tonic treatment. This means that enough hot water from the large steaming tank at one end of the room is mixed in a round tub with enough cold water to make the mass mark 75° Fahrenheit. This is as low temperature as I can bear in my weak, nervous condition; and in this weak preparation I sit down, to stay fifteen minutes by the bath-man's watch. The bath-man is Robert Jarvis, a very nice Irishman from the North, with a fondness for sententious expression which would have animated Captain Cuttle to an ecstasy, and made him want nothing but to be bathed all the time in this bath-room. Robert has other fondnesses. One of them is for getting swells and "stiffies," as he calls dignified people, into a bath where he has them at his mercy, and can rub the rigidity and the skin off of them at the same time with a crash towel, or make them limp as a wet ribbon with buckets of 50° Fahrenheit.

There are two or three merchants about me, some lawyers, an author, a maker of scythes. Singularly enough, in the tub directly opposite sits a man who has filed his caveat for a new mowing-machine. These latter glare at each other out of the water like two rival alligators, one of whom had a set of patent double-action teeth for mincing little darkeys, while the other does it by the old process. To counterbalance this discord, and restore harmony to the humid little group, a celebrated musical composer soaks close by. He beats time on his knee, now and then whistling audibly, thinking out some strain of the opera whose incessant head-labor brought him here. The doctor has forbidden his playing on the piano; but, bless me! he might a great deal better be doing that than beating out the ideas he can't help having in anvil-choruses on his brain.

Altogether I suppose there are twenty of us who belong to this one of the four bath-rooms at Beech-Wold. And for the present purpose there are a dozen of the score taking their social soak together. The conversation is opened by the Rev. Dr. Sylverie Beames (sadly, yet sweetly, and addressing me, Paul Remy):

"A very novel place this must be to you, Mr. Remy; strikingly monotonous-if monotony' and 'striking' be not a confusion of metaphorsafter your life in the busy world."

I (very weakly). "I can hardly say how it seems to me yet; it is all very strange."

Rev. S. B. "Ah! to be sure. You are the young man who has been so very ill. We have all felt a deep solicitude-Robert, did you look what time it was when I got in?-for you. 'Tis a solemn thing to stand upon the cold shore of the vast mysterious sea, and hear the billows breaking on your very ear. May I ask what temperature you take now?"

I. "I won't be sure, but I think it's about 75 or 76. I can't stand very cold baths yet." Rev. S. B. "Who is your doctor?-mine is Dr. Laurence Medlicott."

There was

I am not alone in my glory. No one Neptune here holds the honor of founding his throne upon the floods. The gentleman who occupies the tub next me is Dr. Sylverie Beames, a plump, I. "He is mine also, I suppose. rosy-haired clergyman; deified by his congre- a tall person-a lady in black-who was very gation, and D.D.eified by his college. While kind to me when I was worst; who gave me all still in the A.M. of life-viz., 38-he is seized my medicines and gruels and things, and was with the bronchitis. This is the result, not of the means as much as any body of my getting preaching, in the abstract, as is supposed, but well at all. I suppose she is a nurse; I have of the homiletic act performed in that one un- heard her called Susan." varying B flat, which is the only tone through which some pious minds can consent to express themselves. Present termination of his brilliant career-a tub! Dr. Sylverie Beames has ended where so many eminent exhorters have begun. On the other side of me, in his own individual dampness, sits a State Senator. This is a sta

Rev. S. B. "Ah! she is a blessed woman! Permit me to correct a mistake; she is not a nurse, but a regular scientifically educated and graduated physician. Bloomfield-Miss Susan Bloomfield-is her name really, but she is always called Doctor Susan here. Ah! a blessed woman indeed!"

I. "Is it possible? I have noticed an air of superiority in her whole manner and language, but I had no idea she was really a physician. I thought she was called Doctor by brevet. But does she take charge of the gentleman's department ?"

Nervous-complaint Tubs. "My time's up, Robert!" "So is mine, Robert!" "Ain't mine, Robert ?" "Robert, I'm next to him!" "Robert!"

Tubs containing Obstructions of the Biliary Ducts. "Raw-be-e-rt, will you ge-e-et me a dri-i-y to-ow-ow-el? If y-e-u pl-e-ease, Raw-aw-b-e-ert."

Rheumatic and Gouty Tubs. "Oh dear me!" "Oh my!" "Oh! oh! ugh!" "Robert! Robert! The d-l! There it goes; right through the small of my back!" "Oh my toe!" "Ugh! I

Rev. S. B. "Oh no, indeed! but she has had a great deal of experience in typhoid cases; even more, I suppose, than Dr. Laurence. And so, whenever there is any patient dangerously ill with that class of symptoms, the rest of the faculty-Doctor Laurence and his brother, Doc-" tor Bartholomew-always turn him right over to her."

Tub on the other side, containing the Senator. "Yes; and besides her science she is one of the most patient, watchful women that ever lived. It seems sometimes as if she could absolutely exist without sleep. And your case, I hear, has been one of those which require the utmost vigilance. That was the more reason for giving her the care of you. She never left your pulse for six hours together a week ago last Monday night, but kept her finger on it all the time, while she had a table of tumblers on the other hand."

I. "Did you see me?"

Senatorial Tub. "Oh no, no. Nobody was admitted except the doctors and nurses. Oh, I believe there was one other-a young lady visiting Dr. Susan-a Miss Talfourd, who, solely from admiration of Dr. Susan, begged to be let in to see her management of a critical case." All the Tubs. "Ho-ho! Ha-ha! He-he! Hi-hi! How exactly like a woman; always full of curiosity!"

Senatorial Tub. "I think there is very little to laugh at in the young lady's conduct. In the first place, her admiration of skill led her to seek admission. Admiration of skill in the abstract-of a friend's skill in particular. And then, when she became interested in the progress of the case, and her sympathies were enlisted for our sick Mr. Remy here, she entreated that she might remain longer-till the balance turned toward kill or cure-and vied with Dr. Susan in her sleepless, patient nursing, hardly giving herself time for the necessary food which was to guard her against infection. Another Florence Nightingale, in a narrower field."

"Oh my head!" "Oh my neck!"

shall never be able to get out alone, Robert!" Robert. "All together! Don't stop. It isn't me but the ouldh gintleman in the nixt room that's half deid wi' the heidache! I love to hear ye! Ye cheer me sowl! As long as ye can do that, I am sure ye ain't deid yet! Let me hear from ye's!"

The bath being over, one by one the tubs spill their contents, part of which through the slats return to mother earth; the remainder, who are trying to keep themselves from that destination a little longer, pass through the door to their several rooms. It is now about twelve o'clock o' the day. My Dublin Irishman helps me to No. 12, where I live, and assists me to dress. One of the particulars of which assistance he understands to be making two parts on the back of my head, for fear one of them shouldn't be straight.

Having dressed, I feel myself able to go down to the gymnasium. It is the first time since I came to Beech-Wold that I think of attempting this feat. The gymnasium is a long, high, well-ventilated structure, cut into two rooms equal in length but very unequal in breadth by a partition passing from end to end, parallel with the longest sides of the building. One of these rooms-about twenty-five feet wide-is apportioned to the twin bowling-alleys of the establishment, which lie side by side, made of selected yellow-pine strips laid on the narrow edge, smooth as a looking-glass, level as fluid at rest, straight as the course of conscious rectitude. The other room-sixty feet wide by ninety-eight long-has an elastic oak floor, between which and the earth is a layer of water-proof cement a foot thick, as a concession to the claims of people with lungs. Above this floor is strown

All the Tubs. "Ha! Ah! Oh! How exact- as great a depth of dry tan-bark-deprived of its ly like a woman!"

I. "I must have been very much favored. I hope when I get a little strength again I shall be very grateful.”

tannin by a complicated chemical process of Dr. Medlicott's, that its odor may not interfere with the operation of homeopathic medicines. I have also heard that he subjected the boards that Rev. S. B. "Robert, my time is up, isn't it?" form the ten-pin alley floors to the same process Robert. "Then why ain't ye up yerself? I for the extraction of the turpentine. This latbelieve there isn't a sowl o' ye all that wouldn't ter room contains all the usual paraphernalia sit there, if I didn't tell ye to rise, till ye sthrook of such a place. Horses of leather-padded root like hyacinths. And that with the white wood-masts to climb, bars to spit yourself on o' yer eye right on the blessed clock beyont! like a turkey trussed for roasting, weights to Can't ye tell time? From the big twelve top-lift, dumb-bells to ring, teeters to jump on, permost to the one next it-that's what we call rings to swing by, ropes to go up, ropes to come five minutes. Three o' them make fifteen-d'ye down, ropes with the end strapped to the floor, mind now? Mr. Remy, your time is up. Mr. ropes with the end swaying loose, ropes without Beames, you stay in five minutes longer." end.

My Dublin Michael brings me down to this plexy-and afther I walk him up and down a latter room. I prefer it to the bowling-alley, bit I'll be wheeling one sore leg and two lame as the very thought of seeing all those balls roll-backs down to the cowld sulphur-besides 26 to ing carries a sympathetic bouleversement to my have his hair combed before dinner, jist as soon pulpose brain. There are a few arm-chairs near as he gets out of pack. So good luck to ye, and the door for visitors—I sit down in the nearest I'll be back between times to bring ye up to the house again-in a quarter of an hour jist. So sit still and rist yer eyes where I showed ye." With which my attendant gave his pantaloons a souvenir of salt-water hitch, and departed, leaving me solus.

of them.

“Shall I,” queries Michael, “be afther helping ye to lay hould o' one o' thim rings?"

"At the risk of forfeiting my next cast-off vest let not the abhorrent idea be mentioned!"

"And isn't there nothing ye'd like to be doing?"

"To use your own sweet tongue, Michael, divil a thing. It's as much as I can do to see any thing done."

It is very hard for a man to become accustomed to the truth that a woman may regard him with veneration for other qualities than physical prowess. The old Hellenic vis works in our modern veins, and even the man who can write poetry like Homer loves to offer his ladylove an arm with the biceps of an Achilles in it.

I don't know why a very feeble man is generally so bashful, or why I was so in particular. But certain it is that the emotion of sitting alone in the presence of a very lovely young girl, beneath the impending risk of being looked at by Bedad," returns Michael, kindly taking on her at any moment, was very painful to me. I himself the onus of the conversation-"Bedad, suppose that the reason any man is not bashful and if it's comparin' meself to a gintleman I'd in the presence of woman-beauty, grace, and be, your honor reminds me, in that regard just, wit will give the best clew to the reason why of what I was in me tinder years. Whin 1 was some men are so. He who feels his superiority a broth o' a gossoon, I wint away one fine July over the woman he talks to, or his equality with mornin' with me father an' the lave o' me her, is at ease. He may be an ass, but, not brothers—and it was afther diggin' toorf that knowing it, is comfortable. And I so weak, we were. The ouldh gintleman, rist his sowl! so helpless, that any resolute girl could have for his toes touch the roots o' the shamrock- given me a good whipping were she so minded had got a little spade for me-a fork jist--to-could not help feeling that I might be an obtake out the bogs with; and bein' he was very ject of disrespect to this very estimable young proud o' me, he set me to work on his right lady. hand, between himself an' me brother Tim. Would ye belave it, Sir, we hadn't been workin' above fifteen minutes before the sweat poured down my forehead I thought me breath was lavin' me. So I stopped work, a minute jist, and leaned on the handle o' me fork. 'What's the matter?' says me father, what's the matter with ye, little Mike?' 'Work away, that's a mon, ye dirthy baste ye!' says Tim alannah. And it's not another sthroke I'll do to-day,' says I. 'If it's alone I was, I could dig bog with any spalpeen in all the blissed kingdom o' Leinster, and not rist for a bite o' a pratie or a sup o' buttermilk till sundown; but with seein' Pap on one hand, and Tim on the other, and all the lave o' ye's fornent me, and ivery one ye's all puttin' in to break yer backs, I'm so tired that I can't do another sthroke meself.' And it's lazy they called me, the beggars!" concluded Michael, with a most wronged expression of countenance. "Don't tire yerself, me darlint," added he, by way of improvement, "with lookin' at thim gintlemen with the dyspepsia a turnin' themselves inside out on the big powls. Look the other way, and be me sowl ye'll see somethin' a dale prettier!" This last was in whisper. I turned in the direction Michael indicated, and half started, so weak was I, to perceive Helen Talfourd, who had come noiselessly in at the door from the bowling-alley, and stood looking at the introverting dyspeptic gentlemen aforesaid, with a mingled girlish pleasure and terror.

"And now, Misther Remy, it's lavin' ye I must be, though it breaks the heart of me," continued Michael. "For there's No. 32 as must take exercise regularly, or gits the apple

I think, therefore, that I must have perceptibly blushed when the noise made by my volatile Dublin Irishman in shutting the door behind him drew Miss Talfourd's eyes full upon my face. And, as a matter of course, the moment that she saw me blush she herself took fresh courage, and felt as little embarrassment in approaching me as she would a large sweetmeats-eating boy whom her brother had brought home from school to spend the Christmas holidays. The consciousness that this is the manner of women; that the little cowards never run when they see their lawful masculine prey is scared; that I was regarded with commiseration, allowance, and not a shade of timidity by this very pretty girl—all increased the agony of my situation. I blushed more and more as she drew near. I was never so thoroughly at a disadvantage in my life. She sat down beside me with a manner of the most unflattering sisterly solicitude, and said,

"How do you do now, Sir? This is the first time I have had the opportunity of asking personally since you were able to leave your room. Poor Mr. Remy!"

I was almost provoked enough to be consistent with the rôle of the bashful hobbadehoy I seemed, and say, in a sulky tone, "I ain't poor Mr. Remy! poor yourself!" but I governed my evil disposition, and replied that I was as well as could be expected, thank Miss Talfourd.