since learned that this was a sign of satisfaction with the doctor.

"Well! so we wanted old snub-nose to carry us off?" said M. Lambert, in
his half-joking, half-scolding way. "What the deuce of a hurry we were
in! It was necessary to hold you back with both arms at least!"

"Then you had given me up, doctor?" asked I, rather alarmed.

"Not at all," replied the old physician. "We can't give up what we have
not got; and I make it a rule never to have any hope. We are but
instruments in the hands of Providence, and each of us should say, with
Ambroise Pare: 'I tend him, God cures him!"'

"May He be blessed then, as well as you," cried I; "and may my health
come back with the new year!"

M. Lambert shrugged his shoulders.

"Begin by asking yourself for it," resumed he, bluntly. "God has given
it you, and it is your own sense, and not chance, that must keep it for
you. One would think, to hear people talk, that sickness comes upon us
like the rain or the sunshine, without one having a word to say in the
matter. Before we complain of being ill we should prove that we deserve
to be well."

I was about to smile, but the doctor looked angry.

"Ah! you think that I am joking," resumed he, raising his voice; "but
tell me, then, which of us gives his health the same attention that he
gives to his business? Do you economize your strength as you economize