“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Nature will perform the cure if cure there is to be; but Nature will not do it alone without a little guiding and calling upon at important times.”
“I wish you success,” said Aunt Sophia softly, as they came once more in sight of Arthur Prayle, now seated in one of the garden-seats, still deep in his book; and as she spoke her eyes were fixed upon the reader. “I will help you, doctor, and you must help me. Now, I am going on with my gardening.” She left him, and walked straight back to her slug scissors, resuming her task as if nothing had happened, while the doctor stood looking after her.
“Old maid!” he said to himself. “I called her an old maid. Good heavens! Why, the woman is a saint!”
Volume Two—Chapter Ten.
Nice Task for an Old Maid.
“I declare,” said Aunt Sophia to herself, “it is quite ridiculous as well as shocking. Here I seem to be set up as the head of a sort of wedding bureau, for everybody seized with the silly complaint.”
“Oh, aunt, dear, it isn’t a silly complaint—it’s a very bad one,” sobbed Naomi, who had sought the old lady in her bedroom.