"If she had worn good, stout, sensible leather boots, as she ought to have done, the water would never have touched her feet," said Mr. Walton.
"You had on your gums?" remarked the physician, turning to Lizzy.
"They are so clumsy and unsightly—I never like to wear them," answered the patient, in a husky whisper, and then she coughed hoarsely.
The doctor made no reply to this, but looked more serious.
Medicine was prescribed and taken; and, for two weeks, the physician was in daily attendance. The inflammation first attacked Lizzy's throat—descended and lingered along the bronchial tubes, and finally fixed itself upon her lungs. From this dangerous place it was not dislodged, as an acute disease, until certain constitutional predispositions had been aroused into activity. In fact, the latent seeds of that fatal disease, known as consumption, were at this time vivified. Dormant they might have lain for years—perhaps through life—if all exciting causes had been shunned. Alas! the principle of vitality was now awakened.
Slowly, very slowly, did strength return to the body of Miss Walton. Not until the spring opened was she permitted to go forth into the open air. Then her pale cheek, and slow, feeble steps, showed too plainly the fearful shock her system had received.
A week or two after his remonstrance with his niece about her thin shoes, Mr. Walton returned home. Several letters received by him during the winter advised him of the state of Lizzy's health. In the spring her mother wrote to him—
"Lizzy is much better. The warm weather, I trust, will completely restore her."
But the old gentleman knew better. He had been a deeply interested party in a case like her's before. He knew that summer, with its warm and fragrant airs, would not bring back the bloom to her cheeks. In July came another epistle.
"The hot weather is so debilitating for Lizzy, that I am about taking her to the sea-shore."