‘What steps could I take?’
‘Sit up for the apparition, and speak to it; and if it won’t answer, take hold of it and see if it is flesh and blood or air.’
‘My dear Dolly, I would rather die.’
‘Well, I hope you’ll wake me up when the sounds begin to-night,’ I answered, ‘for I am curious to hear them.’
But I didn’t tell Bessie that I would be the one to ‘bell the cat;’ for, though I have little fear, I have no foolhardiness; and if her ghost turned out to be a real one, I had no wish to interfere with it.
In the evening, as much with a view of pointing out the baby’s condition to Bessie as for any other reason, I asked her to accompany me to the nursery, and see him put to bed. I found that he slept in a room alone with his wet-nurse, who was engaged in bathing the little creature as we entered. Mrs Graham looked very pretty and delicate as she bent over the bath, attending to the child; but I observed that she never once smiled at nor played with him, as nurses usually do with infants during the process of washing. Little Dick was certainly very attenuated and languid, and even his mother seemed to observe it when pointed out to her. Mrs Graham listened to our conversation with rather an anxious expression on her countenance, and I thought by drawing her out we might gain some clue to the baby’s ill health.
‘Is your own child strong and vigorous?’ I asked her.
‘My own child is dead, madam,’ she replied.
‘It was your first, I presume? You appear very young.’