art of Healing, y' all stop your ears; for why;
your life and dailianourly happiness depend on it.
But 'no,' sis John Bull, the knowledge of our
own buddies, and how to save our own Bakin,
Beef I mean, day by day from disease and
chartered ass-ass-ins, all that may interest the
thinkers in Saturn, but what the deevil is it t' us?
talk t' us of the hiv'nly buddies, not of our own.
Babble o' comets an' meteors an' Ethereal nibulæ
(never mind the nibulæ in our own skulls).
Discourse t' us of Predistinashin, Spitzbairgen
seaweed, the last novel, the siventh vile; of
Chrischinising the Patagonians on condition they
are not to come here, and Chrischinise the
Whitechapelians; of the letter to the Times from the
tinker wrecked at Timbuctoo; and the dear
Professor's lecture on the probabeelity of
snailshells in the back-yard of the moon! but don't
ask us to know ourselves!—Ijjits!!"

The eloquent speaker, depressed by the
perversity of Englishmen in giving their minds to
every part of creation but their bodies, suffered
a momentary loss of energy; then Mrs. Dodd,
who had long been watching lynx-like, glided in.
"Let us compound. You are for curing all the
world, beginning with Nobody. My ambition is
to cure my girl, and leave mankind in peace.
Now if you will begin with my child, I will submit
to rectify the universe in its proper turn.
Any time will do to set the human race right;
you own it is in no hurry: but my child's case
presses; so do pray cure her for me."

"Mai — dear — mad'm;  cure her! How on
airth am I to do that?"

"At least tell me what her Indisposition is."

"Oh! What, didn't I tell you? Well, there's
nothing the matter with her."

At receiving this cavalier reply for the reward
of all her patience, Mrs. Dodd was so hurt, and
so nearly angry, that she rose with dignity from
her seat, with her cheek actually pink, and the
water in her eyes. Sampson saw she was ruffled,
and appealed to Julia of all people. "There now,
Miss Julee," said he, ruefully; "she is in a rage
because I won't humbug her. Poplus voolt decipee.
I tell you, ma'am, it is not a midical case; give me
disease and I'll cure 't. Stop, I'll tell ye what do;
let her take and swallow the Barkton Docks'
prescriptions, and Butcher Best's, and canting
Kinyon' s, and after those four tinkers there'll be
plenty holes to mend; then send for me!"

Here was irony. Mrs. Dodd retorted by
finesse; she turned on him with a sugared smile,
and said: "never mind doctors and patients; it
is so long since we met; I do hope you will waive
ceremony, and dine with me en ami."

He accepted with pleasure; but must return
to his inn first and get rid of his dirty boots, and
pashints. And with this he whipped out his
watch, and saw that, dealing with universal
medicine, he had disappointed more than one sick
individual; so shot out as hard as he had shot
in, and left the ladies looking at one another after
the phenomenon

"Well!" said Julia, with a world of meaning.

"Yes, dear," replied Mrs. Dodd, "he is a little
eccentric. I think I will request them to make
some addition to the dinner."

"No, mamma, if you please, not to put me off
so transparently; tell me first the reason you
did not ring the bell, and bid the servant conduct
that man to the door, very, very early in the
conference? If I had interrupted, and shouted,
and behaved so, you would have packed me off to
bed, or somewhere, directly."

"Don't say ' packed,' love. Dismissed me to
bed."

"Ah!" cried Julia, "you are yourself again:
that privileged person is gone, and we must all
mind our P's and Q's once more. This is more than
natural. You would not lay down your character
for a single person, to take it up again the
moment he was gone—without a reason. Here is
some mystery." Then she clasped her hands,
and raised them to Heaven, just like the best
statues; "my own mother has a secret; a secret
from her Julia. Well, I deserve it." This
acknowledgment slipped out through speaking too
fast, and was no sooner uttered than this
statuesque Hebe hung her head most prosaically, and
looked as if she could bite her tongue off.

Mrs. Dodd, with an air of nonchalance, replied
to the effect that Dr. Sampson was not her
offspring; and so she was not bound to correct his
eccentricities. "And I suppose," said she, lazily,
"we must accept these extraordinary people as
we find them; and it is time to dress for dinner."

That day her hospitable board was spread over
a trap. Blessed with an oracle irrelevantly fluent,
and dumb to the point, she had asked him to
dinner with maternal address. He could not be
on his guard eternally; sooner or later, through
inadvertence, or in a moment of convivial
recklessness, or in a parenthesis of some grand
Generality, he would cure her child: or, perhaps, at his
rate of talking, would wear out all his idle themes,
down to the very "well-being of mankind;"
and then Julia's mysterious indisposition would
come on the blank tapis. With these secret hopes
she presided at the feast, all grace and gentle
amity. Julia, too, sat down with a little design,
but a very different one, viz. of being very chilly
company, for she disliked this new acquaintance
cordially, and hated the science of medicine.

The unconscious Object chatted away with
both, and cut their replies very short, and did
strange things; sent away Julia's chicken,
regardless of her scorn, and prescribed mutton: called
for champagne and made her drink it, and pout;
and thus excited Mrs. Dodd's hopes that he was
attending to the case by degrees.

But, after dinner, Julia, to escape medicine
universal, and particular, turned to her mother,
and dilated on the treachery of her literary guide,
the Criticaster. "It said 'Odds and Ends' was
a good novel to read by the sea-side. So I
thought 'then oh, how different it must be from
most books, if you can sit by the glorious sea and
even look at it.' So I sent for it directly, and,