I have been
obliged sometimes to decree the separation of wife and husband for a
time, to save the life of one or the other; of mother and child even.
Every time you fall ill, I believe Mrs. Austin gains strength and energy
at your expense. She absorbs your nervous fluid. It was from this
conviction that I requested you two years ago to change your room,
which, until then, she had shared on the pretence of your necessities,
and to substitute a younger and less sponge-like attendant. You remember
the stress I laid on this?"
"Yes, yes, one of your crotchets, dear doctor, nothing else. You are
full of such vagaries--always were--but there is not another such dear
old willful physician in Christendom for all that."
"Little flatterer! But here is a piece of cassava bread, I brought you,
as you thought you would like to taste it. My old West Indian patient
keeps me well supplied. I fancy to nibble it as I drive about in my
cabriolet, or whatever they call this French affair of mine."
"For a wonder, you have the word right;" and I laughed in his honest
face.
"I am going to France, next spring, when the Stanburys go over, just to
see what strides medicine is making across the waters, and to rest
myself a little, improve my Gallic pronunciation, and get the fashions,
and I will take you as my interpreter, if you promise to be very good
and obedient in the interval.
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