Lucas kept a box for
the Children's Hospital, and drop into it two bright florins, one of
which she had seen Babie hand over to him?
"I do think it is not canny," she said, as if it had been one of his
symptoms.
"Do you want me to prescribe for it?"
"I did try one prescription for having too big a soul; I turned my
poor little boy loose into school, and there they half killed him for
me, and made the original complaint worse."
"Happily no prescription, 'neither life, nor death, nor any other
creature,' can cure that complaint," said the good old doctor,
"though, alas! it is only too apt to dry up from within."
"Still I can't help feeling it rather awful to have to do with a
being so spiritual as that, and it appears to me to increase on him,
so that he never seems quite to belong to me. And precocity is a
dangerous sign, is it not?"
"I see," said the doctor, smiling; "you are going to be a treasure to
the faculty, and indulge in anxieties and consultations."
"Now, Dr. Lucas, you know that we were always anxious about Armine.
You remember his father said he needed more care than the rest."
Dr. Lucas allowed that this was true; but he only recommended
flannel, pale ale, moderation in study, and time to recover the
effects of the pump.
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