inquired more particularly for her brother’s health. She was glad to thank him again for having sent the physician, when his aid was so needful, and she was in so much difficulty. ‘A bold stroke,’ he, said, smiling; ‘I thought you might throw all the blame on me if it were needless.’
‘Needless—oh! it may have saved him. Is that the carriage? I must get home as soon as I can.’
‘Yes, I am sure you must be anxious, but I hope to see more of you another time. Lady Raymond must come and see if you cannot find a day to spend with my girls.’
Lady Raymond! So this was Sir John! Mervyn’s foe and maligner! Was he repenting at the sight of what he had done? Yet he really looked like a very good, kind old man, and seemed satisfied with the very shabby answer he obtained to a speech that filled Honor with a sense of her young friend’s victory. There was Phœbe, re-established in the good graces of the neighbourhood, favoured by the very élite of the county for goodness, sought by those who had never visited at Beauchamp in the days of its gaiety and ostentation! Ungrateful child, not to be better pleased—only saying that she supposed she should go away when her brother should be well again, and not seeing her way to any day for Moorcroft! Was she still unforgiving for Mervyn’s rejection, or had she a feeling against visiting those who had not taken notice of her family before?
Mervyn met Phœbe in the hall, still looking very ill, with his purple paleness, his heavy eyes, and uncertain steps, and though he called himself all right, since his sleep, it was with a weary gasp that he sank into his chair, and called on her for an account of what she had done. His excitement seemed to have burnt itself out, for he listened languidly, and asked questions by jerks, dozing half-way through the answer, and wakening to some fresh inquiry; once it was—‘And did the old sinner take any notice of you?’
‘The prisoner?’
‘Nonsense. Old Raymond. Of course he was in the chair.’
‘He was very kind. It was he who came home from the hunt with us the other day.’
‘Ha! I said it was some old woman of a spy, wanting to get up a story against me!’
‘Nay, I think he felt kindly, for he talked of Lady Raymond calling, and my spending a day at Moorcroft.’