"Caleb values his life too highly to advance such a theory at present," Philip answered for his wife.
"Just so, just so. Well, there's a time for everything, but Caleb isn't entirely wrong on that subject. There are other and less painful and entirely sufficient means of grace, however, from which one can choose, so chills aren't necessary—for that particular purpose, and I hope you won't have any more of them. I'm afraid you forgot some of the advice I gave you, the first time we met, about how to take care of yourself until you had become acclimated."
Philip and Grace looked at each other sheepishly, and admitted that they had not forgotten, but neglected. They had felt so well, so strong, they said.
"Just so, just so. Malaria's just like Satan, in many ways, but especially in sometimes appearing as an angel of light. At first it will stimulate every physical faculty of a healthy person like good wine, but suddenly—well, you know. I had my suspicions the last time I noticed your splendid complexion, but between mending broken limbs and broken heads, and old people leaving the world, and young people coming into it, I'm too busy to do all the work I lay out for myself. You may have one more chill—"
"Oh, Doctor!"
"'Twon't be so bad as the first one, unless it comes to-day. They have four different and regular periods—every day, every other day, once in three days, and once in seven days, and each is worse than all of the others combined—according to the person who has it. I'll soon cure yours, whichever kind it may be, and after that I'm going to get Mrs. Taggess to keep you in mind of the necessary precautions against new attacks, for I've special use for you in this town and county. I wonder if Caleb has told you that you, too, are a means of grace? No? Well, he's a modest chap, but he'll get to it yet, and I'll back him up. This county has needed a visible standard of physical health for young women to live up to, and you entirely fill the bill."
"I shouldn't wonder, Doctor," said Philip, while Grace blushed, "that, religious though you are, you sometimes agree with the sceptic who said that if he'd been the Creator of the world he'd have made health catching, instead of disease."
"No, I can't say that I do. Heaven knows I'm sick enough of sickness; no honest physician's bills pay him for the miseries he has to see, and think of, and fight; but health's very much like money—it's valued most by those who have to work hardest to get it: those who come by it easily are likely to squander it. I can't quite make out, by the ordinary signs, how your wife came by her own. I wonder if she'd object to telling me. I don't ask from mere curiosity, I assure you."
"I'm afraid 'twill stimulate my self-esteem to tell," Grace replied, with heightening color, "for I'm prouder of my health than of anything else—except my husband. I got it by sheer hard, long effort, through the necessity for six years, of going six days in the week, sick or well, rain or shine, to and from a store, and of standing up, for nine or ten hours a day while I was inside. To lose a day or two in such a store generally meant to lose one's place, so a girl couldn't afford to be sick, or even feeble."
"Aha! Wife, did you hear that? Now, Mrs. Somerton, Claybanks and vicinity need you even more than I'd supposed. But—do try to have patience with me, for I'm a physician, you know, and what you tell me may be of great service to other young women; I won't use your name, if you object. Did you have good health from the first?"