“No, no, no,” sobbed the old lady. “I’m only a poor, worn-out, useless creature, and the sooner the grave closes over me the better.”
She was out at the foot of the stairs, leaning upon her niece’s arm, before she had finished her sentence, and Isabel Lee, half troubled, half amused, was following through the door, which the doctor kept open, but he let it go and held out his hands, as the girl looked tenderly up a him. Then the door swung to, and the next moment she was clasped in his arms.
“My darling!” he whispered; and then in the silence which followed they could hear faintly the voice of the old lady on the stairs.
“I’m so sorry, Bel dear,” said the doctor tenderly. “She has one of her fits on to-day. Poor old soul, she has had a great deal of trouble.”
“I know, Fred dear. I don’t mind.”
“But it’s rather hard on our visitor, whom we want to entertain—queer entertainment.”
“Don’t talk about it, Fred. Let me go now.”
“Without any balm for the suffering, deceitful wretch? Just one.”
“Well, only one. Come up soon.”
It was, as the doctor said, a very tiny one, and then the girl had struggled free and hurried up to the drawing-room, while the giver went back to his seat.