'Not to mention a good physician,' added Adeline, smiling, 'and a good friend in that physician.'
'This it be to have money,' said Savanna, as she saw the various things prepared and made to tempt Adeline's weak appetite:—'poor Savanna mean as well—her heart make all these, but her hand want power.'
During this state of alarming suspense Mrs Pemberton was hourly expected, as she had written word that she had traced Adeline into Lancashire, and suspected that she was in her mother's neighbourhood.—It may be supposed that Mrs Mowbray, Adeline, and Savanna, looked forward to her arrival with eager impatience; but not so Dr Norberry—he said that no doubt she was a very good sort of woman, but that he did not like pretensions to righteousness over much, and had a particular aversion to a piece of formal drab-coloured morality.
Adeline only laughed at these prejudices, without attempting to confute them; for she knew that Mrs Pemberton's appearance and manners would soon annihilate them. At length she reached the Lawn; and Savanna, who saw her alight, announced her arrival to her mistress, and was commissioned by her to introduce her immediately into the sick chamber.—She did so; but Mrs Pemberton, almost overpowered with joy at the intelligence which awaited her, and ill fortified by Savanna's violent and mixed emotions against the indulgence of her own, begged to compose herself a few moments before she met Adeline: but Savanna was not to be denied; and seizing her hand she led her up to the bedside of the invalid.—Adeline smiled affectionately when she saw her; but Mrs Pemberton started back, and, scarcely staying to take the hand which she offered her, rushed out of the room, to vent in solitude the burst of uncontrollable anguish which the sight of her altered countenance occasioned her.—Alas! her eye had been but too well tutored to read the characters of death in the face, and it was some time before she recovered herself sufficiently to appear before the anxious watchers by the bed of Adeline with that composure which on principle she always endeavoured to display.—At length, however, she re-entered the room, and approaching the poor invalid, kissed in silence her wan flushed cheek.
'I am very different now, my kind friend, to what I was when you first saw me,' said Adeline, faintly smiling.
To the moment when they last met, Adeline had not resolution enough to revert, for then she was mourning by the dead body of Glenmurray.
Mrs Pemberton was silent for a moment; but, making an effort, she replied, 'Thou art now more like what thou wert in mind, when I first met thee at Rosevalley, than when I first saw thee at Richmond. At Rosevalley I beheld thee innocent, at Richmond guilty, and here I see thee penitent, and, I hope, resigned to thy fate.'—She spoke the word resigned with emphasis, and Adeline understood her.
'I am indeed resigned,' replied Adeline in a low voice: 'nay, I feel that I am much favoured in being spared so long. But there is one thing that weighs heavily on my mind; Mary Warner is leading a life of shame, and she told me when I last saw her, that she was corrupted by my precept and example: if so—'
'Set thy conscience at rest on that subject,' interrupted Mrs Pemberton: 'while she lived with me, I discovered, long before she ever saw thee, that she had been known to have been faulty.'
'Oh! what a load have you removed from my mind!' replied Adeline. 'Still it would be more relieved, if you would promise to find her out; and she may be heard of at Mr Langley's chambers in the Temple. Offer her a yearly allowance for life, provided she will quit her present vicious habits; I am sure my mother will gladly fulfil my wishes in this respect.'