“Dear Mr. Carrington,—Mamma is very ill—how ill I do not know—and fear to learn. Mr. Pillanbill (do you consider him clever?) tells me not to be alarmed, which frightens me terribly. May I hope you will come to us—poor mamma is able and anxious to see you, and you will tell me whether anything else can or ought to be done. Yours sincerely,
“Emily Colville.”
Within ten minutes after the note had reached him Ernest was at the cottage. Emily received him with a blush and a smile. “How kind and good of you to come so quickly!” she said. Tears trembled in her eyes. Ernest had never seen her look so pretty.
“How good of you to send for me!” he replied: “I hope,” he continued—“I hope it proves that I am forgiven?”
Emily hung her head—“If you please, we will never refer to that again,” she said, entreatingly; “I was very proud and foolish, and behaved very ill; but you are wise enough to forgive, and kind enough to forget: is it not so?”
Ernest took her hand and pressed it warmly, nor was it immediately withdrawn.
Mrs. Colville was seriously ill; and having sat with her for some time, the rector obtained her permission to inquire whether Mr. Pillanbill would object to meet Dr. Twiggit, and learn if they agreed in their view of the case, just to satisfy Miss Colville’s natural anxiety.
Mr. Pillanbill graciously consented. Dr. Twiggit resided ten miles off, and had too good a practice near home to make it worth his while to poach upon his (P.‘s) manor for the sake of a single outlying patient with a limited purse. So Dr. Twiggit was summoned, and came; he was a little man, with a large hooked nose and an ornithological cast of countenance, as of a shrewd fowl. Having strutted and clapped his wings, and, so to speak, crowed over the apothecary and the Rosebud, and looked as if he would have liked uncommonly to fight Ernest for a handful of barley, he entered the sick-room, where first, with two little bright bead-like eyes, he looked clean through poor Mrs. Colville into the mattress and feather-bed; next, he stretched out a claw to feel her pulse; then he pecked at her to make her put out her tongue; then he shook his feathers and crowed over her; and then he chased Pillanbill round and out of the room for the consultation, which ran thus:—
Twiggit.—“Clear case!”
Pillanbill.—“No mistake.”