'Is he ill?'

'No, not ill.'

'Unhappy?'

'I have my suspicions that he was,' assented the Doctor, 'once.'

Francis Goodchild could not but observe that the Doctor accompanied
these words with a benignant and protecting glance at their
subject, in which there was much of the expression with which an
attached father might have looked at a heavily afflicted son. Yet,
that they were not father and son must have been plain to most
eyes. The Assistant, on the other hand, turning presently to ask
the Doctor some question, looked at him with a wan smile as if he
were his whole reliance and sustainment in life.

It was in vain for the Doctor in his easy-chair, to try to lead the
mind of Mr. Goodchild in the opposite easy-chair, away from what
was before him. Let Mr. Goodchild do what he would to follow the
Doctor, his eyes and thoughts reverted to the Assistant. The
Doctor soon perceived it, and, after falling silent, and musing in
a little perplexity, said:

'Lorn!'

'My dear Doctor.'

'Would you go to the Inn, and apply that lotion? You will show the
best way of applying it, far better than Mr. Goodchild can.'