Oh, you own that! I know nothing about
nerves. But I suppose that, whether they act
on the brain or the heart, the result to life is
much the same if the nerves be too finely strung
for life's daily wear and tear. And this is what
I mean, when I say you and Lilian will not suit.
As yet, she is a mere child; her nature undeveloped,
and her affection, therefore, untried. You
might suppose that you had won her heart; she
might believe that she gave it to you, and both
be deceived. If fairies now-a-days condescended
to exchange their offspring with those of
mortals, and if the popular tradition did not represent
a fairy changeling as an ugly peevish creature,
with none of the grace of its parents, I
should be half inclined to suspect that Lilian
was one of the elfin people. She never seems
at home on earth; and I do not think she will
ever be contented with a prosaic earthly lot.
Now I have told you why I do not think she
will suit you. I must leave it to yourself to
conjecture how far you would suit her. I say
this in due season; while you may yet set a
guard upon impulse; while you may yet watch, and
weigh, and meditate; and from this moment on
that subject I say no more. I lend advice, but
I never throw it away."

She came here to a dead pause, and began
putting on her bonnet and scarf which lay on
the table beside her. I was a little chilled by
her words, and yet more by the blunt, shrewd,
hard look and manner which aided the effect of
their delivery. But the chill melted away in
the sudden glow of my heart when she again
turned towards me and said:

"Of course you guess, from these preliminary
cautions, that you are going into danger? Mrs.
Ashleigh wishes to consult you about Lilian,
and I propose to take you to her house."

"Oh, my friend, my dear friend, how can I
ever repay you!" I caught her hand, the white
firm hand, and lifted it to my lips.

She drew it somewhat hastily away, and laying
it gently on my shoulder, said, in a soft
voice, "Poor Allan, how little the world knows
either of us! But how little, perhaps, do we
know ourselves. Come, your carriage is here?
That is right; we must put down Dr. Jones
publicly and in all our state."

In the carriage Mrs. Poyntz told me the
purport of that conversation with Mrs. Ashleigh
to which I owed my reintroduction to Abbots'
House. It seems that Mr. Vigors had called early
the morning after my first visit; had evinced
much discomposure on hearing that I had been
summoned; dwelt much on my injurious treatment
of Dr. Lloyd, whom, as distantly related
to himself, and he (Mr. Vigors) being distantly
connected to the late Gilbert Ashleigh, he
endeavoured to fasten upon his listener as one of her
husband's family, whose quarrel she was bound
in honour to take up. He spoke of me as an
infidel "tainted with French doctrines," and
as a practitioner rash and presumptuous;
proving his own freedom from presumption and
rashness by flatly deciding that my opinion
must be wrong. Previously to Mrs. Ashleigh's
migration to L——, Mr. Vigors had interested
her in the pretended phenomena of mesmerism.
He had consulted a clairvoyante much esteemed
by poor Dr. Lloyd, as to Lilian's health, and
the clairvoyante had declared her to be constitutionally
predisposed to consumption. Mr. Vigors
persuaded Mrs. Ashleigh to come at once with
him and see this clairvoyante herself, armed with
a lock of Lilian's hair and a glove she had worn,
as the media of mesmerical rapport.

The clairvoyante, one of those I had publicly
denounced as an impostor, naturally enough
denounced me in return. On being asked solemnly
by Mr. Vigors " to look at Dr. Fenwick and see
if his influence would be beneficial to the
subject," the sibyl had become violently agitated,
and said that, " when she looked at us together,
we were enveloped in a black cloud; that this
portended affliction and sinister consequences;
that our rapport was antagonistic." Mr. Vigors
then told her to dismiss my image, and conjure
up that of Dr. Jones. Therewith the somnambule
became more tranquil, and said: " Dr. Jones
would do well if he would be guided by higher
lights than his own skill, and consult herself
daily as to the proper remedies. The best
remedy of all would be mesmerism. But since
Dr. Lloyd's death, she did not know of a mesmerist,
sufficiently gifted, in affinity with the
patient." In fine, she impressed and awed Mrs.
Ashleigh, who returned in haste, summoned
Dr. Jones, and dismissed myself.

"I could not have conceived Mrs. Ashleigh to
be so utterly wanting in common sense," said
I. " She talked rationally enough when I saw
her."

"She has common sense in general, and
plenty of the sense most common," answered
Mrs. Poyntz. " But she is easily led and easily
frightened wherever her affections are concerned,
and therefore just as easily as she had been
persuaded by Mr. Vigors and terrified by the
somnambule, I persuaded her against the one, and
terrified her against the other. I had positive
experience on my side, since it was clear that
Lilian had been getting rapidly worse under Dr.
Jones's care. The main objections I had to
encounter in inducing her to consult you again
were, first, in Mrs. Ashleigh's reluctance to
disoblige Mr. Vigors, as a friend and connexion of
Lilian's father; and, secondly, a sentiment of
shame in reinviting your opinion after having
treated you with so little respect. Both these
difficulties I took on myself. I bring you to her
house, and, on leaving you, I shall go on to Mr.
Vigors, and tell him what is done is my doing,
and not to be undone by him; so that matter is
settled. Indeed, if you were out of the question,
I should not suffer Mr. Vigors to reintroduce
all these mummeries of clairvoyance and
mesmerism into the precincts of the Hill. I
did not demolish a man I really liked in Dr.
Lloyd, to set up a Dr. Jones, whom I despise,
in his stead. Clairvoyance on Abbey Hill,
indeed! I saw enough of it before."

"True; your strong intellect detected at
once the absurdity of the whole pretence—the