"Well, I am sure there was plenty of that. I got a boxful years and years ago, and nobody has been asking for it at all lately."
"I should imagine not," thought Mona. "Once bit, twice shy."
"Is he the resident doctor?" she asked.
"Oh no! He does not belong to these parts. He comes from London. When you were going down to the braes, did you notice a big white house with a large garden and a lodge, just at the beginning of the Kirkstoun road?"
"Yes—a fine house."
"His old aunt lives there—Mistress Hamilton. She used to come here just for the summer, and bring a number of visitors with her; but latterly she has stayed here most of the time, unless when she is ordered to some Spa or other. She says no air agrees with her like this. He is her heir. She makes a tremendous work with him; I believe he is the only living thing she cares for in the world. He mostly spends his holidays with her, and whiles, when she's more ailing than usual, he comes down from London on the Friday night, and goes up again on the Sunday night."
"He can't have a very large practice in London, surely, if he can do that."
"He's not rightly practising at all, yet. He has been a doctor for some years, but he is studying for something else. I don't understand it myself. But he is very clever; he gave me some powders that cured my rheumatism in a few days, when Dr Burns had been working away half the winter with lotions and fomentations, and lime-juice, and——"
"——alkalies," thought Mona. "Much more scientific treatment than the empirical use of salicin."
For Mona was young and had never suffered from rheumatism.