THE DOCTOR Master, it was now about the time of year when the Court works itself into the most excited and febrile state as everyone prepares for the Circuition and the move to the Summer Palace. The Doctor was busy with her preparations just as everybody else was busy with theirs, though of course in her case there might have been expected to be an added excitement given that this would be her first Circuition. I did all that I could to help her, though I was constrained in this for a while by a slight fever which kept me in my bed for a few days. I confess I hid the symptoms of my illness for as long as I could, feeling that the Doctor would think me weak, and also because I had heard from the apprentices of other doctors that however kindly and pleasant their masters might be with their paying patients, when their own devoted helpers took poorly they were, to a man (which naturally they all were), notoriously brusque and unsympathetic. Doctor Vosill was, however, a very agreeable and understanding doctor to me while I was ill, and tended to my needs as though she were my mother (which I do not think she is quite old enough to be).
