be very much shaken; he revoked at whist last night,--memory sadly
impaired!" This may be a pitiable foible; but heroes and statesmen have
had it most: pardon it in the proud old man! He enjoined the physician
to state throughout the house and the neighbourhood that the attacks were
wholly innocent and unimportant. The physician did so, and was generally
believed; for Sir Miles seemed as lively and as vigorous after them as
before. Two persons alone were not deceived,--Dalibard and Lucretia.
The first, at an earlier part of his life, had studied pathology with the
profound research and ingenious application which he brought to bear upon
all he undertook. He whispered from the first to Lucretia,--

"Unless your uncle changes his habits, takes exercise, and forbears wine
and the table, his days are numbered."

And when this intelligence was first conveyed to her, before she had
become acquainted with Mainwaring, Lucretia felt the shock of a grief
sudden and sincere. We have seen how these better sentiments changed as
human life became an obstacle in her way. In her character, what
phrenologists call "destructiveness," in the comprehensive sense of the
word, was superlatively developed. She had not actual cruelty; she was
not bloodthirsty: those vices belong to a different cast of character.
She was rather deliberately and intellectually unsparing. A goal was
before her; she must march to it: all in the way were but hostile
impediments. At first, however, Sir Miles was not in the way, except to
fortune, and for that, as avarice was not her leading vice, she could
well wait; therefore, at this hint of the Provencal's she ventured to
urge her uncle to abstinence and exercise. But Sir Miles was touchy on
the subject; he feared the interpretations which great change of habits
might suggest. The memory of the fearful warning died away, and he felt
as well as before; for, save an old rheumatic gout (which had long since