Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/389

 Pray what relation is Mrs. Crane to my patient?"

"I really don't know; pray excuse me, my dear Dr. F---."

"Certainly; go while the day is fine. Wrap up;--a close carriage, mind;--and I will look in to-morrow."

CHAPTER X.

WHEREIN IS INSINUATED THE HIGHEST COMPLIMENT TO WOMAN EVER PAID TO  HER SEX BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS WORK.

Lady Montfort has arrived at Clare Cottage. She is shown by Bridget Greggs into a small room upon the first floor; folding-doors to some other room closely shut--evidences of sickness in the house;--phials on the chimneypiece--a tray with a broth-basin on the table--a saucepan on the hob--the sofa one of those that serve as a bed, which Sleep little visits, for one who may watch through the night over some helpless sufferer--a woman's shawl thrown carelessly over its hard narrow bolster;--all, in short, betraying that pathetic untidiness and discomfort which says that a despot is in the house to whose will order and form are subordinate;--the imperious Tyranny of Disease establishing itself in a life that, within those four walls, has a value not to be measured by its worth to the world beyond. The more feeble and helpless the sufferer, the more sovereign the despotism--the more submissive the servitude.

In a minute or two one of the folding-doors silently opened and as silently closed, admitting into Lady Montfort's presence a grim woman in iron grey.

Caroline could not, at the first glance, recognise that Arabella Fossett, of whose handsome, if somewhat too strongly defined and sombre countenance, she had retained a faithful reminiscence. But Arabella had still the same imposing manner which had often repressed the gay spirits of her young pupil; and as she now motioned the great lady to a seat, and placed herself beside, an awed recollection of the schoolroom bowed Caroline's lovely head in mute respect.

MRS. CRANE.--"You too are changed since I saw you last,--that was more than five years ago, but you are not