"There is no cause for alarm, my dear Emma. Your friend will do very well. No, you need not go up to her room. She requires absolutely nothing but to be left to repose. You can look in on her, if you like, just before you go to bed. That will be time enough," explained Dr. Jones, as he took his seat at the table and took up his Review again as if nothing had happened to interrupt his reading.
Emma Cavendish breathed a sigh of relief and resumed her seat. She and Electra read or conversed in a low voice over their magazines until the hour of retiring.
Electra was the first to close her pamphlet, as with an undisguised yawn, for which her school-mistress would have rebuked her, she declared that she could not keep her eyes open a minute longer, much less read a line, and that she was going to bed.
Dr. Jones, with as much courtesy as if he had not been her grandfather, arose and lighted her bedroom candle and put it in her hand.
And she kissed him a drowsy good-night and went upstairs.
Emma was about to follow, when the doctor motioned her to resume her seat.
She did so, and waited.
"I want a word with you about Mrs. Grey, my dear Emma. She is very much out of health."
"I feared so," replied Emma Cavendish.
"Or, to speak with more literal truth, I should say that her nervous system is very much disordered."