"I'm sure it will," I said. "It always was, and it always will be."
"And how are we ourselves," said the doctor. "A little below par, eh? Any sickness? No? Nausea? No? Headache and a feeling of lassitude, then? No?"
After other questions and tests, the old doctor was looking puzzled, when, not finding it in my heart to keep him in the dark any longer, I told him there was nothing amiss with my health, but I was unhappy and had been so since the time of my marriage.
"I see," he said. "It's your mind and not your body that is sick?"
"Yes."
"I'll speak to Father Dan," he said. "Good-bye! God bless you!"
Less than half an hour after he had gone, Alma came to me in her softest mode, saying the doctor had said I was suffering from extreme nervous exhaustion and ought to be kept from worries and anxieties of every kind.
"So if there's anything I can do while I'm here, dearest, . . . such as looking after the house and the servants. . . . No, no, don't deny me; it will be a pleasure, I assure you. . . . So we'll say that's settled, shall we? . . . You dear, sweet darling creature!"
I was too much out of heart to care what happened, but inside two days I realised that Alma had taken possession of the house, and was ordering and controlling everything.
Apparently this pleased such of the servants as had anything to gain by it—the housekeeper in particular—for Alma was no skinflint and she was making my husband's money flow like water, but it was less agreeable to my maid, who said: