“O very well, I dare say,” said Beatrice, rather absently, for she was looking at her aunt’s delicate fragile form, and thinking of what her father had been saying.
“And Queenie,” continued her aunt, earnestly, “you must take great care of your papa—make him rest, and listen to your music, and read story-books instead of going back to his work all the evening.”
“To be sure I shall, Aunt Mary, as much as I possibly can.”
“But Bee,” said Fred, “you don’t mean that you are going to be shut up with that horrid Lady Susan all this time? Why don’t you stay here, and let her take care of herself?”
“Mamma would not like that; and besides, to do her justice, she is really ill, Fred,” said Beatrice.
“It is too bad, now I am just getting better—if they would let me, I mean,” said Fred: “just when I could enjoy having you, and now there you go off to that old woman. It is a downright shame.”
“So it is, Fred,” said Queen Bee gaily, but not coquettishly, as once she would have answered him, “a great shame in you not to have learned to feel for other people, now you know what it is to be ill yourself.”
“That is right, Bee,” said Aunt Mary, smiling; “tell him he ought to be ashamed of having monopolized you all so long, and spoilt all the comfort of your household. I am sure I am,” added she, her eyes filling with tears, as she affectionately patted Beatrice’s hand.
Queen Bee’s heart was very full, but she knew that to give way to the expression of her feelings would be hurtful to Fred, and she only pressed her aunt’s long thin fingers very earnestly, and turned her face to the fire, while she struggled down the rising emotion. There was a little silence, and when they began to talk again, it was of the engravings at which Fred had just been looking. The visit lasted till the dressing bell rang, when Beatrice was obliged to go, and she shook hands with Fred, saying cheerfully, “Well, good-bye, I hope you will be better friends with the doctors next time I see you.”
“Never will I like one inch of a doctor, never!” repeated Fred, as she left the room, and ran to snatch what moments she could with her mamma in the space allowed for dressing.