"And only here just in time, apparently, Mrs. Stothard," says the doctor, helping the nurse to rise. "This is a very bad attack. Just assist me to put this on her," he added, taking the _camisole de force_ from off the bed, and putting it over Annette's head as she sat rigid on the floor; "and keep it on all night, please. A very bad attack indeed."
"Bad attack!" said Mrs. Stothard; "I'm glad you've seen it, Dr. Wainwright. You never would believe me before. But I've often told you, in all your practice you've got no worse case than that she-devil there. And yet these fools here think she will be cured!"
"Strong language, strong language, Mrs. Stothard," said the doctor deprecatingly. "But I don't think you're far out in what you say; I don't, indeed!"
It is the end of August, and society has gone out of town. Sporting people have gone to Goodwood; and the Lawn, at the period of our story, as yet uninvaded by objectionable persons, promises to present, as it hitherto has always presented, a _parterre_ of aristocratic beauty. There is no "limited mail" in these days; but they could tell you at Euston Square of seats for the North booked many days in advance. And there are no Cook's tourists; and yet it would seem impossible that the boats leaving Dover twice a day for the great continental routes _vid_ Calais and Ostend, could possibly carry more passengers. That was before the contemptible German system of _battues_ was allowed among us, when _dreib-jagds_ were almost unknown in England, and when a day's shooting meant exercise, trouble, and skill, not warm corners and wholesale slaughter; but Purdays and Lancasters, though mere muzzle-loaders, did their work, and Grant's gaiters were to be found on most of the right sort throughout the English counties.
The physicians and the great surgeons have struck work--it is no good remaining in a place where there are no patients--and having delegated their practice _pro tem_. to some less fortunate brother--who devoutly prays that chance may bring some rich or celebrated person unexpectedly to town, then and there to be stricken with illness, and left in his, the substitute's, hands--they are away shooting in the Highlands, swarming up Swiss mountains, lounging at German Brunnen, but never losing the soft placid manner and the dulcet tone which seem to imbue their every speech and action with a certain professional air, as though they were saying, "Hum! ha! ye-es, certainly; show me the tongue, please--ah!" and wherever they may be, the scent of the hospital is over them still.