“Never mind,” said Sir Charles kindly.
“You forgive me?”
“Forgive you, my poor girl! Why, is that a crime?”
“It leads to so many things. You don't know what a plague a nurse is, and makes one jealous.”
“Well, but it is only for a time. Come, Bella, this is a little peevish. Don't let us be ungrateful to Heaven. As for me, while you and our child live, I am proof against much greater misfortunes than that.”
Then Lady Bassett cleared up, and the subject dropped.
But it was renewed next morning in a more definite form.
Sir Charles rose early; and in the pride and joy of his heart, and not quite without an eye to triumphing over his mortal enemy and his cold friends, sent a mounted messenger with orders to his servants to prepare for his immediate reception, and to send out his landau and four horses to the “Rose,” at Staveleigh, half-way between Huntercombe and the place where he now was. Lady Bassett had announced herself able for the journey.
After breakfast he asked her rather suddenly whether Mrs. Millar was not rather an elderly woman to select for a nurse. “I thought people got a young woman for that office.”
“Oh,” said Lady Bassett, “why, Mrs. Millar is not the nurse. Of course nurse is young and healthy, and from the country, and the best I could have in every way for baby. But yet—oh, Charles, I hope you will not be angry—who do you think nurse is? It is Mary Gosport—Mary Wells that was.”