“Better go back, Lottie; ye were dead tired last time,” said Steady to his sister on the evening of the next lecture, as she sat down by the road-side to rest, on her way to the steward’s cottage.
“I was not half so tired as my heart felt afore I went to the meeting,” replied Lottie. “Thought I, if I don’t get some help with this burden of trouble, I’ll just lie down and die. All the people looking so strangely at me, and speaking so cruelly of me—no news from mother—no news of poor father—and now my dear young mistress nursing a lady in the small-pox, and I away! Oh, if she catches it!” Lottie started up as if the idea had inspired her with fresh energy, “I will go and nurse her; nothing shall stay me; she shall see that I ain’t ungrateful.”
“Maybe she won’t catch it,” observed Steady.
“I pray God with all my heart and soul that she may not!” cried Lottie. “I should like,” she continued, more quietly, as she plodded along the dusty highroad with her brother—“I should like to have nursed Miss Madden, not ’cause I care for her, but for the sake of her brother, Mr. Arthur.”
“He was the best friend as ever we had,” observed Steady.
“He taught us about heaven—he helped us in trouble—he worked so hard to put out the fire when the flames were a’most catching our cottage. And to think of his lying dying far, far away in Jerusalem!” The black eyes of Lottie Stone were brimming over with tears.
“Mind—you’ll be run over!” exclaimed Steady, suddenly pulling his sister to one side, out of the way of an open carriage which was coming up rapidly behind them. The Stones had been walking in the centre of the road.
Full as she was of her own mournful thoughts, Lottie did not even look at the carriage as it whirled past; but she was startled by a voice from it suddenly exclaiming, “Stop, coachman, stop! Yes; that is Lottie Stone, with her brother!”
Lottie uttered a low cry of delight as she glanced up and recognized the face—emaciated, indeed, and very pale—of the benefactor of her family, as he bent smiling from the carriage to greet those whom he had not seen for years. Arthur Madden and his sister Lina had a few hours before arrived at Axe, having hastened thither immediately upon reaching England, from hearing tidings of the illness of Cora. They had been relieved from anxiety on her account by Mr. Eardley, from whom they learned that the invalid was in a fair way to recover. Medical men had strictly forbidden Arthur to expose himself in his weakened state to any hazard of infection; and Lina, his devoted nurse, was thankful not to be obliged to leave him, as the clergyman informed her how tenderly Cora was watched over by Isa Gritton.