Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. I, 1855.djvu/233

 "Well, mother," asked Mr. Thornton that night, "who have accepted your invitations for the twenty-first?"

"Fanny, where are the notes? The Slicksons accept, Collingbrooks accept, Stephenses accept, Browns decline. Hales—father and daughter come,—mother too great an invalid–Macphersons come, and Mr. Horsfall, and Mr. Young. I was thinking of asking the Porters, as the Browns can't come."

"Very good. Do you know, I'm really afraid Mrs. Hale is very far from well, from what Dr. Donaldson says."

"It's strange of them to accept a dinner-invitation if she's very ill," said Fanny.

"I didn't say very ill," said her brother, rather sharply. "I only said very far from well. They may not know it either." And then he suddenly remembered that, from what Dr. Donaldson had told him, Margaret, at any rate, must be aware of the exact state of the case.

"Very probably they are quite aware of what you said yesterday, John—of the great advantage it would be to them—to Mr. Hale, I mean, to be introduced to such people as the Stephenses and the Collingbrooks."

"I'm sure that motive would not influence them. No! I think I understand how it is."

"John!" said Fanny, laughing in her little, weak, nervous way. "How you profess to understand these Hales, and how you never will allow that we can know anything about them. Are they really so very different to most people one meets with?"

She did not mean to vex him; but if she had