The Doctor groaned again and smote his friend solidly on the knee.
"Oh, you poor rich--you poor rich! 'Eyes have ye, and ye see not; ears have ye, and hear not.' John, the girl must go away from you, who over-indulge her, from this home-nest of luxury, from this private-school business and dancing-class dissipation, from her young-grown-up lunch-parties and matinée-parties, from her violin lessons and her indoor gymnastics--curse them!"
This was a great deal for the usually self-contained physician, and Mr. Clyde stared at him, but half comprehending.
"Go away? Do you mean, Richard, that she must leave me?"
"Yes, I mean just that."
"Well,"--it was a long-drawn, thinking "well,"--"I will ask my sister to take her this summer. She returns from Egypt soon and has just written me she intends to open her place, 'The Wyndes,' in June."
Again the Doctor groaned: "And kill her with golf and picnics and coaching among all those fashionable butterflies! Now, hear to me, John," he laid his hand on his friend's shoulder, "send her away into the country, that is country,--something, by the way, which you know precious little about. Let me find her a place up among those life-giving Green Hills, and do you do without her for one year. Let me prescribe for her there; and I 'll guarantee she returns to you hale and hearty. Trust her to me, John; you 'll thank me in the end. I can do no more for her here."
"Do you mean, Richard, to put her away into real country conditions?"
"Yes, just that; into a farmer's family, if possible,--and I know I can make it possible,--and let her be as one of them, work, play, go barefoot, eat, sleep, be merry--in fact, be what the Lord intended her to be; and you 'll find out that is something very different from what she is, if only you 'll hear to me."
The Doctor was pacing the room in his earnestness. He was not accustomed to beg thus to be allowed to prescribe for his patients. His one word was law, and he was not required to explain his motives.