Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/697

1868.] more. All he wants is interest in his own recovery. Now, if you could persuade him to get change, if it was only ten miles away, it would do him good."

Barbara received this advice in silence; thought it over while she cooked the dinner; then when Steven, as usual, had gone out into the porch to smoke—he was allowed two half pipes of the mildest tobacco daily—came and stood by him. "A fine afternoon, Steven; not so hot as it was yesterday, I'm thinking."

He went on silently with his pipe. During the last few days he had got strangely taciturn, never answering any question unless positively forced upon him. "Now, if you was to have out the spring-cart and the old mare, and let James drive you a bit; just get a breath of fresh air, if 'twas only a couple of miles off."

He shook his head, and still made no answer.

"Well," said Barbara, "we've all our own ways of thinking, but if I'd been sick to death, and there had been them that had come, and sent, ay, three and four times a day, to ask for me, I'd have the civility to give them a thank-you for their pains as I mended. There's the Squire, as you know, here every morning of his life, and when you were ill and at your worst. Miss Katharine was scarcely away from Ashcot. But it's no concern of mine, any of it!" And Barbara, at this point, made a feint of retreating into the house.

Steven laid down his pipe. "Come here, Barbara; you always go away when I want you. Did did Katharine Fane really come to ask for me when I was ill?"

"She was here every day of her life," said Barbara, jesuitically.

"Come nearer, sit down. Is she married yet? I have never remembered it to ask the Squire."

"Katharine is not married, or wasn't yesterday."

"But engaged to Lord Petres all the same?"

"Why do you ask, lad? What should I know of Katharine Fane's love affairs?"

"Well, I'll tell you, Barbara; I'd strange thoughts in my head when I was ill, and I don't rightly know yet which were real and which false Now, I could have sworn I remember some one besides you standing at times by my bedside!" cried Steven, looking at her eagerly as he spoke.

"Mr. Huntly stood there, and the London doctor, and the Squire, and, as you bettered, my niece, Marianne," said Barbara, sententiously.

"Ah, I see, my brain was confused. I talked, I raved a great deal, didn't I?"

"A great deal, Steven. No need to go over all this now."

"I'll never speak of it after to-day. Just tell me what kind of nonsense I you [sic] used to talk, and—and if any one but you listened to it,"

"You must go to some one with less on their minds than me if you want a sick man's ravings remembered," said Barbara. "You talked of those that are dead and gone I mind, and of scenes that were no credit to you, too, Steven. So much on this card, so much on this—and French words, too (you, that in your right mind, can know no more o' the French than me), and of a lady and page; this for hours and hours together; a lady and page looking down and mocking you from the wall, and nothing there but the picture of your poor grandfather, that never mocked man or child in his life."

"And this was all? Don't deceive me—this kind of rubbish was all? And no one heard me but you?"