“A compliment, Angel,” said the Bishop. “Kittens alter a good deal.”
“Not much for the better,” said Angela. “If you only could see Mrs. Lamb, who used to be the very moral of a kitten, scratchiness and all!”
“I thought her very much improved,” said Lady Underwood gravely.
“Oh, yes; grown into a sleek and personable tabby, able to wave her tail at the tip and tuck her paws—her velvet paws—well under her; and lick her lips over the—oh, dear!—what do you call it?—your menu is quite too much for us poor savages, Marilda. A bit of damper is quite enough for us, isn’t it, Bishop?”
“Varied with opossum and fern root,” he said smiling; “but that’s only when we have lost our way.”
The talk drifted off to the history of a shepherd’s child, who had strayed into the bush, and after much searching, in which the Bishop and Fulbert had been half starved, had finally been found and carried home by Angela’s “crack gin,” as she told it to Bernard; and as Marilda thought the poor child was in a trap, it had to be translated into “favourite pupil,” though Bernard carried on the joke by asking Marilda if she thought the natives cannibals given to the snaring of mankind.
Altogether it was a thoroughly merry evening, such as comes to pass in the meeting of old friends and comrades in too large numbers for grave discourse, but with habits of close intercourse and associations of all kinds. Emilia and her husband tried in all courtesy not to let the Merrifields feel themselves neglected; and indeed Bessie was only too glad to listen and join at times in the talk; but it all went outside Mrs. Sam, who was on the whole scandalised at the laughter of a Bishop, and a Sister. Indeed, it was true that Bishop Fulmort, naturally a grave man, very much so in his early days, comported himself on this occasion as if he realised Southey’s wish—
“That in mine age as cheerful I might be,
Like the green winter of the holly tree.”
At any rate, that evening was long a bright remembrance. Lena slept all night, and was so fresh and well in the morning that Angela foreboded that the examination might not detect her delicacy. They met Mrs. Merrifield, and took her with them to the doctor’s, Lady Underwood Travis having placed her carriages at their disposal.
It was very much as Angela had expected, knowing by hospital reputation what the doctor was supposed to be to old ladies and fanciful mothers, while perhaps he had also heard of her fracas long ago at the hospital. For he was not more courteous to her than could be helped, treating her much as if she were only the nursery maid, and hardly looking at the opinion which she had made Professor May write out for him.