of occupation which would render my daily visits to her so difficult, consented to make them, only on condition that my fair patient was to walk with me every day six times around the garden of her hotel; for I guessed she was too indolent to persevere in taking exercise if left to herself.

“The system I pursued with her succeeded perfectly.  I was then a very active man, and I walked so fast that I left the Duchesse every day when our promenade ended bathed in a copious perspiration; which, aided by the medicine and sparing regime, soon restored her figure to its former symmetry.

“At her hotel, I daily met ladies of the highest rank and distinction, many of whom were suffering from a similar cause, the same annoyance for which the Duchesse consulted me; and I then discovered that there is no malady, however grave, so distressing to your sex, ladies, or for the cure of which they are so willing to submit to the most disagreeable regime, as for aught that impairs their personal beauty.

“When her female friends saw the improvement effected in the appearance of the Duchesse by my treatment, I was consulted by them all, and my fame and fortune rapidly increased.  I was proclaimed to be the most wonderful physician, and to have effected the most extraordinary cures; when, in truth, I but consulted Nature, and aided her efforts.

“Shortly after this period, a grand lady, an acquaintance of one of my many patients among the noblesse, consulted me; and here the case was wholly different to that of the Duchesse, for this lady had grown so thin, that wrinkles—­those most frightful of all symptoms of decaying beauty—­had made their appearance.  My new patient told me that, hearing that hitherto my great celebrity had been acquired by the cure of obesity, she feared it was useless to consult me for a disease of so opposite a nature, but even still more distressing.

“I inquired into her habits and regime.  Found that she took violent exercise; was abstemious at table; drank strong green tea, and coffee without cream or milk; disliked nutritious food; and, though she sat up late, was an early riser.  I ordered her the frequent use of warm baths, and to take all that I had prohibited the Duchesse; permitted only gentle exercise in a carriage; and, in short, soon succeeded in rendering the thin lady plump and rosy, to the great joy of herself, and the wonder of her friends.

“This treatment, which was only what any one possessed of common sense would have prescribed in such a case, extended my fame far and wide.  Fat and thin ladies flocked to me for advice, and not only liberally rewarded the success of my system, but sounded my praises in all quarters.

“I became the doctor a la mode, soon amassed an independence, and, though not without a confidence in my own skill—­for