Here was Sepia, who did not care the dust of a butterfly's wing for causing any amount of family misery, who would without a pang have sacrificed the genuine reputation of an innocent man to save her own false one--shuddering at an idea as yet bodiless in her brain--an idea which, however, she did not dismiss, and so grew able to endure! I have kept this woman--so far as personal acquaintance with her is concerned--in the background of my history.

For one thing, I am not fond of _post-mortem_ examinations; in other words, I do not like searching the decompositions of moral carrion.

Analysis of such is, like the use of reagents on dirt, at least unpleasant.

Nor was any true end to be furthered by a more vivid presentation of her.

Nosology is a science doomed, thank God, to perish! Health alone will at last fill the earth.