‘A baddish state of things, eh, doctor!’ said Charles. ‘Well, what do you think this lady proposes? To set off forthwith, both of us, to take charge of him. What do you think of that, Dr. Mayerne?’
‘I should say it was the only chance for him,’ said the doctor, looking only at the latter. ‘Spirits and health reacting on each other, I see it plain enough. Over-worked in parliament, doing nothing in moderation, going down to that gloomy old place, dreaming away by himself, going just the right way to work himself into another attack on the brain, and then he is done for. I don’t know that you could do a wiser thing than go to him, for he is no more fit to tell what is good for him than a child.’ So spoke the doctor, thinking only of the patient till looking up at the pair he was dismissing to such a charge, the helpless, crippled Charles, unable to cross the room without crutches, and Amabel, her delicate face and fragile figure in her widow’s mourning, looking like a thing to be pitied and nursed with the tenderest care, with that young child, too, he broke off and said—‘But you don’t mean you are in earnest?’
‘Never more so in our lives,’ said Charles; on which Dr. Mayerne looked so wonderingly and inquiringly at Amabel, that she answered,—
‘Yes that we are, if you think it safe for Charles and baby.’
‘Is there no one else to go? What’s become of his sister?’
‘That would never do,’ said Charles, ‘that is not the question;’ and he detailed their plan.
‘Well, I don’t see why it should not succeed,’ said the doctor, ‘or how you can any of you damage yourselves.’
‘And baby?’ said Amy.
‘What should happen to her, do you think?’ said the doctor with his kind, reassuring roughness. ‘Unless you leave her behind in the carriage, I don’t see what harm she could come to, and even then, if you direct her properly, she will come safe to hand.’ Amabel smiled, and saying she would fetch her to be inspected, ran up-stairs with the light nimble step of former days.
‘There goes one of the smallest editions of the wonders of the world!’ said Charles, covering a sigh with a smile. ‘You don’t think it will do her any harm?’