One

morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, grey

eyebrow.

"She

has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the

mercury in his clinical thermometer. " And that chance is for her to want

to live. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes

the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that

she's not going to get well.

Has

she anything on her mind?"

"She

- she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue.

"Paint?

- bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for

instance?"

"A

man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth

- but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind."

"Well,

it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that

...