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ALICE LAUDER.
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have a rival next the throne; and if two of a trade ever do agree, it is certainly not when both belong to the over-crowded ranks of the professional invalid. She always blamed other people for their headaches, and thought they proceeded mostly from want of exercise, or eating what did not agree with them; and unless the patient abandoned herself to a succession of Clare’s favourite remedies, and also showed signs of speedy benefit from her active though somewhat contradictory treatment, she was apt to be a little stern and incredulous. It was all the more noble of her, therefore, to be so sympathetic to a friend who was throwing her over when just on the point of starting to the Granbys’ great annual festivity.

“Well, you do seem a little feverish, and I think I’ll give you ten drops of pulsatilla and some anti-pyrine. You wouldn’t like me to stay with you?”

“Oh, not for worlds! You are so good to me, Clare, and I feel myself such a trouble sometimes. I often think I must be a millstone round your neck.”

“Well, millstones are quite the fashionable thing nowadays. No gentleman’s family is complete without one. I think of making a collection of mine and hanging them up in the

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