“My dear! my own dear child!” Then anxiously following her husband with her eye, as he went to look for her luggage, she said, “How thin he looks, Queenie!”
“O, he has been doing so much,” said Busy Bee. “It is only for this last week he has gone to bed at all, and then only on the sofa in Fred’s room. This is the first time he has been out, except last Sunday to Church, and a turn or two round the garden with grandmamma.”
He came back before Queen Bee had done speaking. “Come, Beatrice,” said he to his wife, “I am in great haste to have you at home; that fresh face of yours will do us all so much good.”
“One thing is certain,” said she; “I shall send home orders that you shall be allowed no strong coffee at night, and that Busy Bee shall hide half the mountain of letters in the study. But tell me honestly, Geoffrey, are you really well?”
“Perfectly, except for a growing disposition to yawn,” said her husband laughing.
“Well, what are the last accounts of the patient?”
“He is doing very well: the last thing I did before coming away, was to lay him down on the sofa, with Retzsch’s outlines to look at: so you may guess that he is coming on quickly. I suppose you have brought down the books and prints?”
“Such a pile, that I almost expected my goods would be over weight.”
“It is very fortunate that he has a taste for this kind of thing: only take care, they must not be at Henrietta’s discretion, or his own, or he will be overwhelmed with them,—a very little oversets him, and might do great mischief.”
“You don’t think the danger of inflammation over yet, then?”