Though the lane to the Reynolds’ colony was not full in her way, she was glad to sit down in the shade to speak to old Betty, who did not comport herself according to either extreme common to parents in literature.
“So Fanny, she be in the ’firmary, be her? I’m sure as ’twas very good of the young Squire and you, my lady; and I’m sorry her’s bin and give you so much trouble.”
Everybody was harvesting but the old woman, who had the inevitable bad leg. All men and beasts were either in the fields or at the races, and Rosamond, uncertain whether her patient was not in a dying state, rejoiced in her recent acquisition of a pony carriage, and speeding home with renewed energy, roused her ‘parson’s man’ from tea in his cottage, and ordered him off to take Betty Reynolds to see her daughter without loss of time.
Then at length she opened her own gate and walked in at the drawing-room window. Terry started up from the sofa, and Anne from a chair by his side, exclaiming at her appearance, and asking if there had been any accident.
“Not to any of us, but to a poor woman whom I have been taking to the Infirmary,” she said, sinking into a low chair. “Where’s Julius?”
“He went to see old George Willett,” said Anne. “The poor old man has just heard of the death of his daughter at Wil’sbro’.”
“And you came to sit with this boy, you good creature. How are you, master?”
“Oh, better, thanks,” he said, with a weary stretch. “How done up you look, Rose! How did you come?”
“I walked from Wil’sbro’.”
“Walked!” echoed both her hearers.