Mrs. Witherby sniffed in a superior manner. This was a subject on which she had opinions.
“My dear. The Wellses have dyspepsia on the brain—as well as elsewhere. Ever since that cousin of Dr. Wells, Dr. Mayhew Pipp, in London, discovered his famous cure for dyspepsia, the Wellses have had nothing else, and talked of nothing else. If they aren’t careful, they’ll die of it, just like Dr. Pipp did. I say that dyspepsia is not a disease at all. It’s a habit. Whenever my mother saw any of us looking yellow, she made us stick a feather down our throats—and that was the end of it. I will say, though, that I never tasted worse parsnip wine in my life. Such a slaughter of good parsnips. I had a little salad—and I thought it tasted very peculiar, now I come to think of it. Well—if it’s ptomaine poisoning, there’s probably very little hope for her.”
Corinne, who had only partly persuaded herself that there was nothing in the tramp theory, found herself unprepared for the even more serious poison theory.
“Oh, mamma, don’t!” she wailed.
“We may as well face the worst, Corinne. Because, until her sister can get back, we shall be obliged to stay here and oversee things. I shall, at least. It’ll be my duty.”
Corinne stiffened with fright.
“I wonder whether they’ve sent for Mrs. Barton,” she whispered.
“I certainly hope so. Every moment counts in ptomaine poisoning.”
Corinne recalled vaguely something she had read once about bodies turning blue from poison; she thought of beautiful Mrs. Mearely turning blue, and pleaded:
“But, mamma—it may not be ptomaine poisoning. Mrs. Wells didn’t exactly know....”