really have their centre in the life which the very vegetable, that lives
organically, shares with us! And, alas! if it be that life which we
share with the vegetable, that can cloud, obstruct, suspend, annul that
life centred in the brain, which we share with every being howsoever
angelic, in every star howsoever remote, on whom the Creator bestows the
faculty of thought!




CHAPTER XII.

But suddenly I remembered Mrs. Poyntz. I ought to call on her. So I
closed my round of visits at her door. The day was then far advanced, and
the servant politely informed me that Mrs. Poyntz was at dinner. I could
only leave my card, with a message that I would pay my respects to her the
next day. That evening I received from her this note:--

Dear Dr. Fenwick,--I regret much that I cannot have the pleasure of
seeing you to-morrow. Poyntz and I are going to visit his brother, at
the other end of the county, and we start early. We shall be away some
days. Sorry to hear from Mrs. Ashleigh that she has been persuaded by
Mr. Vigors to consult Dr. Jones about Lilian. Vigors and Jones both
frighten the poor mother, and insist upon consumptive tendencies.
Unluckily, you seem to have said there was little the matter. Some
doctors train their practice as some preachers fill their churches,--by
adroit use of the appeals to terror. You do not want patients, Dr.
Jones does. And, after all, better perhaps as it is.
Yours, etc.
M. Poyntz.