Her health got rather poor -- not unnaturally, considering the way
she divided her time between doctoring herself and fussing after sick people
in all sorts of weather. With the fancifulness of her kind,
she finally took it into her head that she must consult a doctor in New York.
Of course, no one but an old maid would have done this;
the home doctors were good enough for everyone else. Nothing would do,
however, but she must go to New York; so, against the advice of everyone,
she wrote to a cousin who was living there to meet her,
and with her old wraps, and cap, and bags, and bundles, and stick,
and umbrella, she started. The lady met her; that is, went to meet her,
but failed to find her at the station, and supposing that she had not come,
or had taken some other railroad, which she was likely to do, returned home,
to find her in bed, with her "things" piled up on the floor.
Some gentleman had come across her in Washington, holding the right train
while she insisted on taking the wrong route, and had taken compassion on her,
and not only escorted her to New York, but had taken her and all her parcels
and brought her to her destination, where she had at once retired.
"He was a most charming man, my dear," she said to her cousin,
who told me of it afterward in narrating her eccentricities;
"and to think of it, I don't believe I had looked in a glass all day,
and when I got here, my cap had somehow got twisted around
and was perched right over my left ear, making me look a perfect fright.
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