THE GOOD PHYSICIAN. 125

A sad prospect, this, to one to whom personal
appearance had always been so important.

We’ have said that Lucy Lovett was still for
weeks compelled to spend a part of her time daily
in bed. During these weeks Mr. Lovett was
almost constantly by her side, and their conver-
sations were often exceedingly interesting. Lucy
was now ten years old. Her understanding was
good, and she was therefore capable of reflection.
Though her mind had been too much affected
during her illness to permit her to have any very
distinct recollections of its events, there were
yet confused remembrances of great suffering on
her part, and bursts of tender sorrow from those
around her. There was enough to make Lucy
feel that she had been very near death. Then
she thought of the cause of all this; that it was
not, as her friends supposed, an accident, but that
she had purposely, from a silly vanity—the very
remembrance of which made her blush—thrown
off her shoes, and ineurred all that exposure to
wet and cold which had been followed by such
terrible consequences.

“Papa,” said she one day, ‘‘I have been very
ill, have I not ?”