The doctor--summoned to say what was the matter with him--told us that his nervous system had been shaken, and frankly acknowledged that there was nothing to be done but to wait until time set it right again.
I am afraid I must confess that I myself took no very indulgent view of the patient's case.
It was his duty to exert himself--as I thought.

He appeared to me to be too indolent to make a proper effort to better his own condition.

Lucilla and I had more than one animated discussion about him.

On a certain evening when we were at the piano gossiping, and playing in the intervals, she was downright angry with me for not sympathizing with her darling as unreservedly as she did.

"I have noticed one thing, Madame Pratolungo," she said to me, with a flushed face and a heightened tone.
"You have never done Oscar justice from the first." (Mark those trifling words.