“I should have liked my poor Janet to have been forced to communicate with me every half-year,” she sighed.
“What, when she has never chosen to write all this time?”
“Yes. It is very weak, but I can’t help it. It would be something only to see her name. I have never known where to write to her, or I would have done so.”
“O, very well,” said Bobus, “you had better invite them both to share the menage in Collingwood Street.”
“For shame, Bobus,” said Jock. “You have no right to say such things.”
“Only that all this might as well have been left undone if my mother is to rush on them to ask their pardon and beg them to receive her with open arms. I mean, mother,” he added with a different manner, “if you give one inch to that Greek, he will make it a mile, and as to Janet, if she can’t bring down her pride to write to you like a daughter, I wouldn’t give a rap for her receipt, and it might lead to intolerable pestering. Now you know she can’t starve on £50 a year besides her medical education. Wakefield will always know where she is, and you may be quite easy about her.”
Caroline gave way to her son’s reasoning, as he thought, but no sooner was she alone with Jock than she told him that he must take her to London to see Janet in her lodgings before the departure for the States.
He was at her service, and as they did not mean to sleep in town, they started at a preposterously early hour, with a certain mirth and gaiety at thus eloping together, as the mother’s spirits rose at the bare idea of seeing the first-born child for whom she had famished so long. Jock was such a perfect squire of dames, and so chivalrously charmed to be her escort, that her journey was delightful, nor did she grow sad till it was over. Then, she could not eat the food he would have had her take at the station, and he saw tears standing in her eyes as he sat beside her in the omnibus. When they were set down they walked swiftly and without a word to the lodgings.
Dr. and Mrs. Hermann had “left two days ago,” said the untidy girl, whose aspect, like that of the street and house, betokened that Janet was drinking of her bitter brewst.
“What shall we do, mother?” asked Jock. “You ought to rest. Will you go to Mrs. Acton or Mrs. Lucas, while I run down to Wakefield’s office and find out about them?”