She was not permitted to stir from the sofa, often not even to cross two rooms to her bed.

Her father came and prayed over her with a kind of melancholy glee, and with the avowed solemnity of a watcher by a deathbed.

She was surrounded by that most poisonous and degrading of all atmospheres--a medical atmosphere.

The existence of this atmosphere has nothing to do with the actual nature or prolongation of disease.

A man may pass three hours out of every five in a state of bad health, and yet regard, as Stevenson regarded, the three hours as exceptional and the two as normal.