Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/281



" brother's great fondness for Dorimene made him, and, consequently, the whole family, unhappy at every the least indisposition of hers. She had hitherto been in the main very healthy; but now she fell into a distemper, with which, of all others, it is most terrible to see a friend afflicted. I know not by what name to call it; but it was such a dejection on her spirits that it made her grow perfectly childish. She could not speak without shedding tears, nor sit a moment without sighing, as if some terrible misfortune had befallen her. You may imagine the condition my poor brother was in at seeing her thus suddenly changed; for, from being of the most cheerful disposition that could be, she was become perfectly melancholy. He sent for the most celebrated physicians in France, and she, to comply with his request, took whatever they ordered; but all medicines proved vain, and rather increased than abated her distemper.

"We all three endeavoured to the utmost of our power to divert and amuse her; but sometimes she insisted so strongly on being left alone, that as we found the contradicting her made her worse, we were obliged to comply with her desire.

"My brother was so anxious about his wife, that when she would not suffer him to be with her, as he hated to burden his friends with his afflictions, he used in a manner to escape from us, that he might