“Le coeur humain a beaucoup de plis et de replis.”
Madame de Motteville.
“And how goes it, my dear, with Madam and Mrs Rhoda?” inquired little Mrs Dorothy as she handed a cup to Phoebe.
“They are well, I thank you. Mrs Dolly, I have come to ask your counsel.”
“Surely, dear child. Thou shalt have the best I can give. What is thy trouble?”
“I have two or three troubles,” said Phoebe, sighing. “You know Rhoda is going to-morrow to Delawarr Court; and I am to go with her. I wish I need not!”
“Why, dear child?”
“Well, I am afraid it must sound silly,” answered Phoebe, with a little laugh at herself; “but really, I can scarce tell why. Do you never feel thus unwilling to do a thing, Mrs Dorothy, almost without reason?”
“Ah, there is a reason,” said the old lady: “and it comes either from your body or your mind, Phoebe. If ’tis from your body, let your mind govern it in any matter you must do. If it come from your mind, either you see a clear cause for it, or you do not.”
“I do not, Mrs Dolly. I reckon ’tis but the spleen.”
Everything we call nervous then fell under the head of spleen.