"But, doctor," the anxious inquirer would probably say, "Mr. Ludlow never saw her again after she was removed, did he?"
"Well, indeed, my dear madam,--you see I am telling professional secrets; but you are not like other women: you are so far above any vulgar curiosity, and I know I may rely so entirely on your discretion, that I make an exception in your case,--they never did meet. You see these cases are so uncertain; and cerebral disease developes itself so rapidly, that before any favourable change took place, the patient sunk."
"Dear me, how very sad! It was at an asylum, I suppose?"
"Well, my dear madam, it was under private care--under the very best circumstances, I assure you; but--you'll excuse me; this is entirely confidential. And now to return to your dear little boy."
So did kind-hearted Dr. Brandram lend his aid to the laying of the ghost of scandal at Elm Lodge; and gradually it became accepted that Mrs. Ludlow had died under the circumstances hinted at by Dr. Brandram.
"It is rather a disadvantage to the dear child, Charley, I fear," sapiently remarked Miss Til to the docile Mr. Potts as he was attending her on a gardening expedition, holding a basket while she snipped and weeded, and looking as if pipes and beer had never crossed the path of his knowledge or the disc of his imagination; "people will talk about his mother having died in a lunatic-asylum."
"Suppose they do?" asked Charley in reply. "That sort of thing does not harm a man; and"--here the honest fellow's face darkened and his voice fell--"it is better they should say that than the truth. I think that can always be hidden, Til. The poor woman's death has saved us all much; but it has been the greatest boon to her child; for now no one need ever know, and least of all the child himself, that he has no right to bear his father's name."
"It is well Geoff is not a rich man, with a great estate to leave to an eldest son," said Til, pulling at an obstinate tuft of groundsel, and very anxious to prevent any suspicion that her lover's words had brought tears to her eyes.
"Well," said Charley, with rather a gloomy smile, "I'm not so certain of that, Til: it's a matter of opinion; but I'm clear that it's a good thing he's not a great man--in the 'nob' sense of the word I mean--and that the world can afford to let him alone. Here comes the young shaver--let's go and talk to him." And Charley, secretly pining to get rid of the basket, laid down that obnoxious burden, and went across the grass-plat towards the nurse, just then making her appearance from the house.
"Charley is always right," said Til to herself as she eradicated the last obstinate weed in the flower-bed under inspection and rejoined Mr. Potts; from which observation it is to be hoped that the fitness of Miss Til for undertaking that most solemn of human engagements--matrimony--will be fully recognised. There are women who practically apply to their husbands the injunctions of the Church Catechism, in which duty to God is defined; who "believe in, fear, trust, and love" them "with all their hearts, with all their minds, with all their souls, and with all their strength;" and Matilda Ludlow, though a remarkably sensible girl, and likely enough to estimate other people at their precise value, was rapidly being reduced to this state of mind about Charley, who was at all events much less unworthy than most male objects of female devoteeism.