He found her reclining, the picture of lassitude.  “How good of you to come,” she drawled.

“What’s the matter?” said he brusquely.

“I wish to cawnsult you about myself.  I think if anybody can brighten me up, it is you.  I feel such a languaw—­such a want of spirit; and I get palaa, and that is not desiwable.”

He examined her tongue and the white of her eye, and told her, in his blunt way, she ate and drank too much.

“Excuse me, sir,” said she stiffly.

“I mean too often.  Now, let’s see.  Cup of tea in bed, of a morning?”

“Yaas.”

“Dinner at two?”

“We call it luncheon.”

“Are you a ventriloquist?”

“No.”

“Then it is only your lips call it luncheon.  Your poor stomach, could it speak, would call it dinner.  Afternoon tea?”

“Yaas.”

“At seven-thirty another dinner.  Tea after that.  Your afflicted stomach gets no rest.  You eat pastry?”

“I confess it.”

“And sugar in a dozen forms?”

She nodded.

“Well, sugar is poison to your temperament.  Now I’ll set you up, if you can obey.  Give up your morning dram.”

“What dwam?”

“Tea in bed, before eating.  Can’t you see that is a dram?  Animal food twice a day.  No wine but a little claret and water; no pastry, no sweets, and play battledore with one of your male subjects.”

“Battledaw! won’t a lady do for that?”

“No:  you would get talking, and not play ad sudorem.”

“Ad sudawem! what is that?”

“In earnest.”

“And will sudawem and the west put me in better spiwits, and give me a tinge?”

“It will incarnadine the lily, and make you the happiest young lady in England, as you are the best.”

“I should like to be much happier than I am good, if we could manage it among us.”

“We will manage it among us; for if the diet allowed should not make you boisterously gay, I have a remedy behind, suited to your temperament.  I am old-fashioned, and believe in the temperaments.”

“And what is that wemedy?”

“Try diet, and hard exercise, first.”

“Oh, yes; but let me know that wemedy.”

“I warn you it is what we call in medicine an heroic one.”

“Never mind.  I am despewate.”

“Well, then, the heroic remedy—­to be used only as a desperate resort, mind—­you must marry an Irishman.”

This took the lady’s breath away.

“Mawwy a nice man?”

“A nice man; no.  That means a fool.  Marry scientifically—­a precaution eternally neglected.  Marry a Hibernian gentleman, a being as mercurial as you are lymphatic.”

“Mercurial!—­lymphatic!”—­

“Oh, hard words break no bones, ma’am.”

“No, sir.  And it is very curious.  No, I won’t tell you.  Yes, I will.  Hem I—­I think I have noticed one.”