"Certainly not. Still I have feared that she may have a tendency to
consumption. Do you think so? Your questions alarm me!"

"I do not think so; but before I pronounce a positive opinion, one
question more. You say you have feared a tendency to consumption. Is
that disease in her family? She certainly did not inherit it from you.
But on her father's side?"

"Her father," said Mrs. Ashleigh, with tears in her eyes, "died young,
but of brain fever, which the medical men said was brought on by over
study."

"Enough, my dear madam. What you say confirms my belief that your
daughter's constitution is the very opposite to that in which the seeds of
consumption lurk. It is rather that far nobler constitution, which the
keenness of the nervous susceptibility renders delicate but elastic,--as
quick to recover as it is to suffer."

"Thank you, thank you, Dr. Fenwick, for what you say. You take a load
from my heart; for Mr. Vigors, I know, thinks Lilian consumptive, and Mrs.
Poyntz has rather frightened me at times by hints to the same effect. But
when you speak of nervous susceptibility, I do not quite understand you.
My daughter is not what is commonly called nervous. Her temper is
singularly even."

"But if not excitable, should you also say that she is not
impressionable? The things which do not disturb her temper may, perhaps,
deject her spirits. Do I make myself understood?"

"Yes, I think I understand your distinction; but I am not quite sure if