When he returns home, it is not to a holiday; the patient he most cares for, the anxiety that most gnaws him, awaits him there." "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.