The Adventure of the Urbane Old Gentleman

When Elsie's holidays -- I beg pardon, vacation -- came to an end, she proposed to return to her High School in London. Zeal for the higher mathematics devoured her. But she still looked so frail, and coughed so often -- a perfect _Campo Santo_ of a cough -- in spite of her summer of open-air exercise, that I positively worried her into consulting a doctor -- not one of the Fortescue-Langley order. The report he gave was mildly unfavourable. He spoke disrespectfully of the apex of her right lung. It was not exactly tubercular, he remarked, but he 'feared tuberculosis' -- excuse the long words; the phrase was his, not mine; I repeat _verbatim_. He vetoed her exposing herself to a winter in London in her present unstable condition. Davos? Well, no. _Not_ Davos: with deliberative thumb and finger on close-shaven chin. He judged her too delicate for such drastic remedies. Those high mountain stations suited best the robust invalid, who had dropped by accident into casual phthisis.

For Miss Petheridge's case -- looking wise -- he would not recommend the Riviera, either: too stimulating, too exciting. What this young lady needed most was rest: rest in some agreeable southern town, some city of the soul -- say Rome or Florence -- where she might find much to interest her, and might forget the apex of her right lung in the new world of art that opened around her.