“I trust the doctor is not ill? I don't see him with you,” said Mary, anxious to relieve her momentary embarrassment.
“Papa has been sent for to Knocktiernan, Miss Martin. They 're afraid that a case of cholera has occurred there.”
“May God forbid!” ejaculated Mary, with deep emotion; “we have great distress and poverty around us. I hope we may be spared this scourge.”
“It is what papa feared always,” rejoined Ellen, gravely; “that want and destitution would bring on the malady.”
“Have you heard who it is is ill?”
“Simon Hanley, the carpenter, Miss Martin; he worked at the castle once—”
“Yes, yes I remember him; he made me my first little garden-rake. Poor fellow! And he has a large family. Your father will, I trust, have seen him in time. Knocktiernan is but four miles of a good road.”
“Papa went by the Mills, Miss Martin, for shortness, for he was on foot.”
“Why did he not ride?”
“He has sold Bluebell,—the pony, I mean, Miss Martin.”