"Not but that I would have gone through all that and a good deal more, my darling," said the old lady, putting down her work, crossing the room, and taking Madeleine's pale face between her own fat little hands, "to have been with you in your illness, and to have nursed you. Duchesses indeed!" cried Mrs. Mac, with a sniff of defiance at the remembrance of the Northallerton defection--"I'd have duchessed 'em, if I'd had my way!"
"You would have been the dearest and best nurse in the world, I know, Aunt Hannah," said Madeleine; then added, with a half sigh, "though I could not have been better attended to than I was, I think."
Lady Muriel marked the half sigh instantly, and looked across at her stepdaughter. Reassured at the perfect calm of Madeleine's face, on which there was no blush, no tremor, she said, "You wrote that note, Madeleine, according to your father's wish?"
"Two days ago, mamma."
"Two days ago! I should have thought that--"
"Perhaps he is very much engaged, mamma, and knew that there was no pressing need of his services. Dr. Wilmot told me that--" and the girl hesitated, and stopped.
"Is that Dr. Wilmot of Charles-street, close by the Junior? Are you talking of him?" said Penruddock. "Doosid clever feller they say he is. He's been attending my cousin Cranbrook--you know him, Lady Muriel; been awfully bad poor Cranbrook has; head shaved, and holloing out, and all that kind of thing--frightful; and this doctor has pulled him through like a bird--splendidly, by Jove!"
"He drives an awful pair of screws," said "Bristles," who was horsey in his tastes; "saw 'em standing at Cranbrook's door. To look at 'em, you wouldn't think they could drag that thundering big heavy brougham--C springs, don't you know, Clem?--and yet when they start they nip along stunningly."
"Ah, those poor doctors!", said Mrs. M'Diarmid; "I often wonder how they live, for they take no exercise now all the streets are M'Adam and wood and all sorts of nonsense! When there was good sound stone pavement, one was bumped about in your carriage like riding a trotting-horse, and that was all the exercise the poor doctors got. Now they don't get that."
"And Dr. Wilmot attended Lord Cranbrook, did he, Clem?" asked Madeleine softly, "and brought him safely through his illness. I'm glad of that; I'm glad--"