Her brain felt quite clear now, and her eyes no longer hurt her when she tried to read.
Next day she was allowed to go downstairs for tea.
Aunt Beryl, who looked very tired and sallow, helped her to dress, and Uncle George came upstairs to fetch her, and they both supported her very carefully down the stairs and into the drawing-room, where a fire had been lit, and a special tea laid on a little table beside the arm-chair.
Grandpapa, with Shamrock prancing unrestainedly at his feet, and the parrot, brought up from the dining-room, hanging upside down in his cage on the centre-table, were all waiting to welcome her.
“Very glad to see you down, me dear,” said Grandpapa, shaking hands with her formally. “A nasty time you’ve had, a very nasty time, I’m afraid.”
“She’s been such a good girl, Grandpapa,” said Aunt Beryl, raising her voice as though by a great effort. “Dr. Young says she’s the best patient he’s ever had.”
“Did you have to swallow a great deal of physic, Lyddie? Ah, a very disagreeable thing, physic,” said Grandpapa, who was ordered a certain draught daily, which he was only too apt to pour away into the nearest receptacle in the face of all Aunt Beryl’s protests.
“Mr. Almond asked after you on Wednesday, Lydia. He has been quite concerned over your illness,” Uncle George told her.
Lydia sat back in the arm-chair, her long plaits falling over either shoulder, and could not help feeling that all this attention was rather agreeable.
Aunt Beryl’s friend, Mrs. Jackson, “stepped in,” to ask how she felt, and to borrow a paper pattern for a blouse, and said she had also heard from Dr. Young and other sources what a good patient Lydia had been.