she were angered by compulsion, and long before serious harm could ensue. Used to the sight of famine, he thought inanition would break the spirit without injuring the health. Many a time had he beheld those who professed to have tasted nothing for two days, trudge off tottering but cheerful, with a soup-ticket, and he had not calculated on the difference between the children of want and the delicately nurtured girl, full of overwrought feeling. Though he had been watching in loving intercession for the unhappy child, and had resolved on forcing his way to her in the morning, he felt as if he had played the part of the Archbishop of Pisa, and that, had she perished in her fearful determination, her blood would have been on himself. He was quite overcome, and forced to hurry to his own room to compose himself, ere he could return to inquire further; but there was little more to hear. Miss Fennimore desired to be alone with the patient; Phœbe allowed herself to be laid on the sofa and covered with shawls; Mervyn returned to his bed, and Robert still watched.
There was a great calm after the storm, and Phœbe did not wake till the dim wintry dawn was struggling with the yellow candlelight, and a consultation was going on in low tones between Robert and the governess, both wan and haggard in the uncomfortable light, and their words not more cheering than their looks. Bertha had become feverish, passing from restless, talking sleep to startled, painful wakening, and Miss Fennimore wished Dr. Martyn to be sent for. Phœbe shivered with a cold chill of disappointment as she gathered their meaning, and coming forward, entreated the watchers to lie down to rest, while she relieved guard; but nothing would persuade Miss Fennimore to relinquish her post; and soon Phœbe had enough to do elsewhere; for her own peculiar patient, Mervyn, was so ill throughout the morning, that she was constantly employed in his room, and Robert looking on and trying to aid her, hated himself doubly for his hasty judgments.
Maria alone could go to church on that Sunday morning, and her version of the state of affairs brought Miss Charlecote to Beauchamp to offer her assistance. She saw Dr. Martyn, and undertook the painful preliminary explanation, and she saw him again after his inspection of Bertha.
‘That’s a first-rate governess! Exactly so! An educational hot-bed. Why can’t people let girls dress dolls and trundle hoops, as they used to do?’
‘I have never thought Bertha oppressed by her lessons.’
‘So much the worse! Those who can’t learn, or won’t learn, take care of themselves. Those who have a brain and use it are those that suffer! To hear that poor child blundering algebra in her sleep might be a caution to mothers!’
‘Did you ever see her before, so as to observe the little hesitation in her speech?’
‘No, they should have mentioned that.’
‘It is generally very slight; but one of them—I think, Maria—told me that she always stammered more after lessons—’
‘The blindness of people! As if that had not been a sufficient thermometer to show when they were overworking her brain! Why, not one of these Fulmorts has a head that will bear liberties being taken with it!’