"But, good heavens! why should Lilian Ashleigh be a perpetual patient?
The sanitary resources of youth are incalculable. And--"

"Let me stop you; I cannot argue against a physician in love! I will
give up that point in dispute, remaining convinced that there is something
in Lilian's constitution which will perplex, torment, and baffle you. It
was so with her father, whom she resembles in face and in character. He
showed no symptoms of any grave malady. His outward form was, like
Lilian's, a model of symmetry, except in this, that, like hers, it was too
exquisitely delicate; but when seemingly in the midst of perfect health,
at any slight jar on the nerves he would become alarmingly ill. I was
sure that he would die young, and he did so."

"Ay, but Mrs. Ashleigh said that his death was from brain-fever, brought
on by over-study. Rarely, indeed, do women so fatigue the brain. No
female patient, in the range of my practice, ever died of purely mental
exertion."

"Of purely mental exertion, no; but of heart emotion, many female
patients, perhaps? Oh, you own that! I know nothing about nerves; but I
suppose that, whether they act on the brain or the heart, the result to
life is much the same if the nerves be too finely strung for life's daily
wear and tear. And this is what I mean, when I say you and Lilian will
not suit. As yet, she is a mere child; her nature undeveloped, and her
affections therefore untried. You might suppose that you had won her
heart; she might believe that she gave it to you, and both be deceived.
If fairies nowadays condescended to exchange their offspring with those
of mortals, and if the popular tradition did not represent a fairy
changeling as an ugly peevish creature, with none of the grace of its
parents, I should be half inclined to suspect that Lilian was one of the