"No, no, she is very good, indeed. You are mistaken."
"No, I am not mistaken. There are persons who do sack away, unconsciously, the very life of others, from some peculiarity of organization in both. I have strong faith in this theory. I have been obliged sometimes to decree the separation of wife and husband for a time, to save the life of one or the other; of mother and child even. Every time you fall ill, I believe Mrs. Austin gains strength and energy at your expense. She absorbs your nervous fluid. It was from this conviction that I requested you two years ago to change your room, which, until then, she had shared on the pretence of your necessities, and to substitute a younger and less sponge-like attendant. You remember the stress I laid on this?"
"Yes, yes, one of your crotchets, dear doctor, nothing else. You are full of such vagaries—always were—but there is not another such dear old willful physician in Christendom for all that."
"Little flatterer! But here is a piece of cassava bread, I brought you, as you thought you would like to taste it. My old West Indian patient keeps me well supplied. I fancy to nibble it as I drive about in my cabriolet, or whatever they call this French affair of mine."
"For a wonder, you have the word right;" and I laughed in his honest face.
"I am going to France, next spring, when the Stanburys go over, just to see what strides medicine is making across the waters, and to rest myself a little, improve my Gallic pronunciation, and get the fashions, and I will take you as my interpreter, if you promise to be very good and obedient in the interval."
"Oh, thank you; I would like it of all things. But what takes the Stanburys abroad? I have heard nothing of this plan of theirs before."
"Pleasure and business combined, I believe. They will remain abroad some years, for the education of George Gaston. What an idol Mrs. Stanbury is making of that boy, to be sure, and Laura is just as foolish about him as her mother! By-the-by, she is to be married, they say, to that young Prussian nobleman, who was there so much last winter. I forget his unpronounceable name. They will reside in Berlin, I understand, should the marriage be 'unfait accompli,' as the French have it. Is not that right, Miriam?"
"Oh, admirably pronounced! You are becoming quite a Gaul in your old age."
"I hope I shall never become gall and wormwood, in any event, like some old folks. Now, is not that being literal, Miriam?"