“Not quite the young Bear of Stoneborough,” said Clement, leaning affectionately on his broad shoulder; “our skittish pair are grown very sober-minded. But you have not told us of your father.”
“My father is very well. He walks down every day to sit with my wife, and visits a selection of his old patients, who are getting few enough now. This is not my patient, I suppose?”
“Unless you are ready to prescribe only laughing and good Jersey cows’ milk,” said Bernard, pulling the long silky brown hair. “Where’s mother, little one?”
“Mother sent me to say Aunt Angel is ready, if Dr. May will come up to Aunt Cherry’s room. Lena is frightened, and they did not like to leave her.”
It was a long visit, after Phyllis had come down; and, walking up and down the cloister with Bessie Merrifield, listened to her schemes of education for the little maidens. Lily she liked and admired, and she was convinced that Magdalen’s weak health and spirits were the result of the spoiling system. Phyllis trembled a little as she heard of the knocking about, out-of-doors ways that had certainly produced fine strong healthy frames and upright characters, but she forbore to say that if her little girl had to be left, it would be to her mother and Mysie.
By and by Tom came down, and finding Geraldine alone in the drawing-room, he answered her inquiry with a very grave look. “Poor little thing! You do not think well of her! Is it as Angel feared?”
“Confirmed disease, from original want of development of heart. Measles accelerated it. I doubt her lasting six months, though it may be longer or less.”
“Have you told Angel?”
“She knew it, more or less. She is ready to bear it, though one can see how her soul is wrapped up in the child, and the child in her.”
“One thing, Tom, will you tell Miss Merrifield yourself, and alone, and make her feel that it is an independent opinion? It may save both the poor child and Angel a great deal.”