Mr. Hogarth's Will

by Catherine Helen Spence

When in Paris she called on Madame Lenoir with a letter of introduction from her cousin. She received Elsie very kindly, and asked her and the Phillipses to her 'at homes'; but as all the people there talked French, Mrs. Phillips did not find them at all entertaining, and she thought French hospitality a very shabby affair. They did not remain long in Paris, but went down to Italy, and visited Florence and Rome. Mr. Phillips wished he had had his two eldest girls with him in Italy, and promised to himself that next time he took the journey they should accompany him.

When they returned to London they found that all had gone well in their absence—Francis had won his election; Jane appeared to be in excellent spirits; and the children had made good progress with their lessons. Mr. Phillips appeared to miss his old friend and neighbour, Brandon, very much, and could not find any one of his colonial acquaintances who could fill up the blank which his departure from London had made. Besides, they were always losing somebody out of their pleasant circle. Every mail steamer, and every fine clipper ship that sailed for Australia seemed to take one or more from them; and though new people did come, they did not appear to be so agreeable as those who went away. Mr. Phillips could not remain contented in London, so he proposed a trip to America with his wife and Alice as before; but Mrs. Phillips disliked the sea, and did not feel very well, so she said she would rather stay in London with the family, though it was getting rather late in the season for London. She did not care to go to Derbyshire without him, far less to go to Scotland; so, if he could be so cruel as to leave her, she would prefer London. If Emily had been a little older, Mr. Phillips would have taken her with him, for he disliked travelling alone, but she was too young, as he himself acknowledged.

Elsie could not understand the cause of Mrs. Phillips's peculiarly disagreeable conduct to herself lately, and she was almost on the point of leaving her, and taking another situation, when the children, one after the other, took scarlatina, and in such a house of sickness she—their favourite—could not be spared. All lessons, of course, were at an end. Mrs. Phillips looked into the nursery several times a day, and said how sorry she was to see the children so ill, and how she suffered from her anxiety about them; but it was Jane and Elsie who took the real charge of the little patients. The mother did not seem really alarmed, though the children were really very ill; the only thing she did that appeared like apprehension was making Jane write to Mr. Phillips to return to England without delay as soon as the children were seized with the fever. Jane also wrote to Dr. Phillips, and Vivian hurried to London, and stayed with his brother's family until his return, which was a great lightening of the load of responsibility which the sisters felt rested on them. In spite of every care and all that either doctor or nurses could do, little Eva fell a victim to the disease; and, after her death, Mrs. Phillips for the first time seemed to realize the danger of the others. Everything had gone so prosperously with her since her marriage; she had known no sorrow, and little annoyance; she had always had her husband at her side to smooth everything for her, so that she really scarcely knew what the contingencies and trials of life were; but this death, happening when the father who loved his children so dearly was absent, affected the indolent and generally unimpressible woman very strongly. She felt that she was somehow to blame about it. "What will Stanley say when he comes home? Oh, what will he say to me for losing his darling child? Oh, why did he go to America, and leave me with such a charge? And the others will be sure to die, too!"—were her constant lamentations.

Her grief made her quite unfit to take any charge of the survivors, and yet she was incredulous when she was told by her brother-in-law, or by the Misses Melville, that they were really recovering. It was not till her husband returned, which was as soon as he possibly could, and assured her that they were quite out of danger, that she gave any credit to it. Mr. Phillips felt the loss of one of his children more keenly than most men, but he was grateful to see that he was likely to save the others, and he did full justice to the care and attention which they had received from Vivian and Jane and Elsie.

Francis Hogarth was in London, attending a short parliamentary session, when the children were so ill, and was constant in his inquiries as to their health. Dr. Vivian Phillips forced Jane and Elsie out to hear their cousin make his first speech one evening, when the patients were decidedly convalescent. Jane was very much pleased with Francis' DEBUT, and though Elsie thought it rather tame, because it was not on an important subject, and was very calmly delivered, she was glad that he had not broken down, for it seemed a most imposing assembly for a stranger to address. Francis had visited the Derbyshire Phillipses, according to promise, after his election was over, and had been a good deal interested in Dr. Vivian, both on account of his own qualifications, and because Jane Melville had been interested in him. He now felt that Jane and the young physician were placed in very intimate relations with each other, and he naturally enough fancied that what he so much wished for himself would appear desirable to a man so acute and sensible as Vivian Phillips. Her calm temper, her promptitude, her method, were all shown to great advantage in a sick room. He forgot that Elsie's gentle tender ways and her overflowing sympathy might be equally attractive, but Dr. Vivian was quite used to all sorts of sick rooms, and to all sorts of nursing, and nothing was very striking to him, so that he fell in love with neither sister, though he liked them both very much.

Jane in particular was one of those women who may count herself fortunate if she meets with one real lover in her lifetime. William Dalzell was not to be counted, except perhaps as a blank, but by means of the most favouring circumstances, she had taken Francis Hogarth's heart into her possession, at least for time, and this was her one prize in the strange lottery of love. No other attachment she was likely to inspire, as she felt herself, but her lover was not so clear-sighted. Dr. Vivian Phillips had a great respect for her, and enjoyed her society now and then as a pleasant change from the more insipid company of his sisters or their female acquaintances, but to spend a life with her would be too fatiguing. She seemed always to require him to think his best, to say his best, and to do his best in her company. Now a wife just intelligent enough to appreciate his own abilities, but willing in all things to be guided by him, was a desirable thing; but one so thoroughly his equal as Jane Melville would allow him no repose.

The children did not gain strength rapidly, and Emily in particular made a most tardy recovery. Her illness threatened permanently to weaken her constitution, particularly as winter was fast approaching, and she had felt that season in England very trying during the preceding year. Her uncle Vivian strongly recommended that she should winter in a milder climate to re-establish her health, and Mr. Phillips thought going to the south of France, where the girls might acquire the language without much trouble, would be a good arrangement; but when he mentioned it to Emily herself as an excellent idea, the child languidly put it aside.

"Why not take up back to dear old Wiriwilta?" said she. "We were never ill there. It is warmer and drier than France; and if Miss Melville and dear Alice go with us, we can learn lessons just as well there as here. I am tired of this great London, with its smoke and its noise."

Mr. Phillips was not a man to disregard a sick child's longing at any time; and when his brother said that, though he would regret the departure of the family from England, her native air was probably the very best she could have, and the long voyage in a good ship would benefit all the children, he turned his thoughts towards Australia, as he could not have believed possible three months before. The accounts he received from Dr. Grant as to his affairs were satisfactory enough, but the returns were not at all what he had expected; and he found that his London establishment was very costly. He might return to England in a few years, but the children were so young they might go on with Miss Melville very well at Wiriwilta for some time. A very fine ship was on the berth; Mr. Dempster was going in it, and several other acquaintances; so that, though he would have preferred waiting for Brandon's report of how things were going on, he decided on leaving England before the season was so far advanced, on Emily's account.

Mrs. Phillips was in consternation at hearing her husband say he was really going to return.