"Heaven forbid! It is curable--easily--by removing the cause."

"And what is the cause?"

"The cause?"--he hesitated, and looked rather uneasy.--"Well, the cause,
sir, is--tight stays."

The tranquillity of the meeting was instantly disturbed. "Tight stays!
Me!" cried Rosa. "Why, I am the loosest girl in England. Look, papa!"
And, without any apparent effort, she drew herself in, and poked her
little fist between her sash and her gown. "There!"

Dr. Staines smiled sadly and a little sarcastically: he was evidently
shy of encountering the lady in this argument; but he was more at his
ease with her father; so he turned towards him and lectured him freely.

"That is wonderful, sir; and the first four or five female patients
that favored me with it, made me disbelieve my other senses; but Miss
Lusignan is now about the thirtieth who has shown me that marvellous
feat, with a calm countenance that belies the herculean effort. Nature
has her every-day miracles: a boa-constrictor, diameter seventeen
inches, can swallow a buffalo; a woman, with her stays bisecting her
almost, and lacerating her skin, can yet for one moment make herself
seem slack, to deceive a juvenile physician. The snake is the miracle of
expansion; the woman is the prodigy of contraction."

"Highly grateful for the comparison!" cried Rosa. "Women and snakes!"

Dr. Staines blushed and looked uncomfortable. "I did not mean to be
offensive; it certainly was a very clumsy comparison."