“May I see her? It would not agitate her?”
“No, indeed! It must soothe her, I believe. If she is awake, and — and herself. Would you care to come to her room now? You will find her wretchedly altered, poor little thing!”
She led him to the sickroom and went softly in. Amabel was restless and very hot, fretfully rejecting any suggestions for her relief, but when she saw her favorite brother, her heavy eyes brightened perceptibly, and a faint smile came into her little flushed face. She held out her hand, and he took it, and spoke gently and cheerfully to her, in a way that seemed to do her good. She did not wish to let him go, but at a sign from Cecilia he disengaged his hand from the feeble clutch on it, promising to come back again presently if Amabel would be a good girl and swallow the medicine Nurse had ready for her.
He was a good deal shocked by her appearance and found it difficult to believe Cecilia’s assurance that when the fever had passed the patient would speedily recover her lost weight. Nor could he feel that old Nurse was competent to have the command of a sickroom. Cecilia agreed to this, but comforted him by saying that it was Sophy who was in command.
“Dr. Baillie says that no one could manage better, and, indeed, Charles, you would not doubt it could you but see how good Amabel is with her! She has such resolution, such firmness! Poor Nurse does not like to force the little dear to do what she does not wish to, and then, too, she has old-fashioned notions that will not do for Dr. Baillie. But our cousin, he says, may be trusted to obey his directions implicitly. Oh, you could not wrest her away from Amabel! It would be fatal, for she frets if Sophy is too long absent from her room.”
“We are very much obliged to Sophy,” he said. “But it is not right that she should be doing such work! Setting aside the risk of infection, she did not come to us to act as sick nurse!”
“No,” Cecilia said. “She did not, of course, but — but — I don’t know how it is, but she seems to be so much a part of our family that one does not consider such things as that!”
He was silent, and she left him, saying that she must go to their mother. When, later, he saw Sophy and attempted to remonstrate with her, she cut him very short.
“I am delighted you are come home, my dear Charles, for nothing could do Amabel more good. Your poor mama, too, needs the support of your presence. But if you mean to talk in that nonsensical style I shall soon be wishing you a thousand miles off!”
“You have your own engagements,” he persisted. “I daresay I must have seen as many as a dozen cards of invitation on the mantelpiece in the Yellow Saloon! I cannot think it right that you should forgo all your amusements for the sake of my little sister!”