“How is she?” were the first words which the dean spoke as he pulled up his horse close to the little gate, and put out his hand to take that of his friend.
“How are you, Arabin?” said he. “It is very kind of you to come so far, seeing how much there is to keep you at Barchester. I cannot say that she is any better, but I do not know that she is worse. Sometimes I fancy that she is delirious, though I hardly know. At any rate her mind wanders, and then after that she sleeps.”
“But is the fever less?”
“Sometimes less and sometimes more, I imagine.”
“And the children?”
“Poor things; they are well as yet.”
“They must be taken from this, Crawley, as a matter of course.”
Mr. Crawley fancied that there was a tone of authority in the dean’s advice, and immediately put himself into opposition.
“I do not know how that may be; I have not yet made up my mind.”
“But, my dear Crawley—”