Besides, whenever anybody worth curing is ill down here, they always send to London for a doctor." "I told him so, dearest," said the lover.

"But he answered me directly, then I must set up in London, and as soon as my books showed an income to keep a wife, and servants, and children, and insure my life for five thousand pounds"-- "Oh, that is so like papa.

He is director of an insurance company, so all the world must insure their lives." "No, dear, he was quite right there: professional incomes are most precarious.

Death spares neither young nor old, neither warm hearts nor cold.

I should be no true physician if I could not see my own mortality." He hung his head and pondered a moment, then went on, sadly, "It all comes to this--until I have a professional income of eight hundred a year at least, he will not hear of our marrying; and the cruel thing is, he will not even consent to an engagement.