"But you keep quiet, my dear, and fancy I'm your mother taking care on you—which I wish I was. And I'll send a boy to Camberwell to tell 'em why I ain't a coming back just yet."
"Let me write a——"
"Let you keep yourself quiet, and don't worry me. I'm going to manage you through this."
"You're very good, Ann," said Mattie; "but if you catch the fever of me!"
"Lor bless you! I shan't catch no fever—I'm too old for changing colour, my dear. You might as well expect buff-leather to catch fevers. But don't you remember how skeered I was once when you came in piping hot with it from Kent Street? Ah! I was vain of my good looks then, and afraid they might be spiled."
Ann Packet had been a girl with a bat-catching-against-wall kind of countenance all her life, but distance lent enchantment to the view of the merry days when she was young. And Ann Packet's will was absolute, and carried all before it. Mattie was bowed down by it; she felt weaker than usual, and too ill to assert supremacy in her own house. Giving up, she thought that it was comfortable to have a friend at her side, and to feel that the loneliness of a few hours since was hers no longer.
Ann Packet went down-stairs, and found a boy prepared—for twopence down and twopence when he came back—to deliver any message within a radius of fifty miles from Tenchester Street. The messenger departed, returning, in due course, with a favourable, even a kind reply. Ann Packet was to take her own time, and a girl would be found to assist until Mattie was better. Mattie read the note to Ann.
"There, didn't I say so?"
"It's in Mr. Sidney's handwriting," said Mattie, putting the letter under her pillow; "he's always kind and thoughtful."
"Ah! he is."