Hiram's face grew anxious.
'You find something wrong,' he said.
His brother made no reply, except to ask more questions.
At last he exclaimed, 'You are all right, Hiram—all right. There is a little irregularity about the action of the heart: it is not chronic, but connected with the digestive organs. You are in as good health as a man could ask to be. Only, don't use your brain quite so much; it interferes with your digestion, and that in you affects the action of the heart. It is not worth mentioning, I assure you' (Hiram was looking alarmed); 'but, since you can just as well as not, I say, take more exercise, and give your brain a holiday now and then.'
'Thank you—thank you! So you don't think there is anything in the idea that I shall be—be—struck with paralysis—at about the same age that mother was?'
'Pure nonsense, Hiram—utter nonsense!' exclaimed Doctor Frank, cheerfully. [He knew how foolish it is to alarm one.] 'Still, exercise, exercise. That we ought all to do.'
The next day, Hiram commenced his morning rides; one hour before breakfast regularly.
He had fought the battle of life, and had won. Now he was called on to go into another contest. He set to work at this with his customary assiduity.
No one who saw the millionnaire on his horse, trotting sharply over the road very early in the morning, understood really what was going on.
One day, however, Dr. Ephraim Peters caught sight of him, spurring on under full headway, as if everything depended on the work he had in hand.