“Oh, dearest mamma, when papa is kind there is no one like him,—so gentle, so thoughtful, so soft in manner, and so dignified all the while. I wish you could see him as he stood here. A thousand loves from your own boy,
“DIGBY.”
Madame Cleremont wrote by the same post. I did not see her letter; but when mamma's answer came I knew it must have been a serious version of my accident, and told how, besides a dislocated shoulder, I had got a broken collar-bone, and two ribs fractured. With all this, however, there was no danger to life; for the doctor said everything had gone luckily, and no internal parts were wounded.
Poor mamma had added a postscript that puzzled Madame greatly, and she came and showed it to me, and asked what I thought she could do about it. It was an entreaty that she might be permitted to come and see me. There was a touching humility in the request that almost choked me with emotion as I read it. “I could come and go unknown and unnoticed,” wrote she. “None of Sir Roger's household have ever seen me, and my visit might pass for the devotion of some old follower of the family, and I will promise not to repeat it.” She urged her plea in the most beseeching terms, and said that she would submit to any conditions if her prayer were only complied with.
“I really do not know what to do here,” said Madame to me. “Without your father's concurrence this cannot be done; and who is to ask him for permission?”
“Shall I?”
“No, no, no,” cried she, rapidly. “Such a step on your part would be ruin; a certain refusal, and ruin to yourself.”
“Could Mr. Eccles do it?”
“He has no influence whatever.”
“Has Captain Hotham?”