Finally, Mr. Wycherly interviewed the doctor, who said to him in plain words what he had feared to say to the child's aunt.
The doctor was an outspoken young man of sporting tendencies. He wore a white hat rather on one side and drove an uncommonly good horse, and to Mr. Wycherly he said: "It's like setting a thoroughbred filly to pull a cart-load of bricks to expect that child to do housework in her present state. She ought to do nothing for three months, and even then I should say she is singularly unfitted for the kind of life she has up there. I know those schools—excellent for big strong girls; but that child isn't strong. She's all nerves and brains and empty, craving heart. The lung trouble isn't serious if it's checked in time, but if she goes back she'll get overtired and catch cold again directly. I'm sorry for her aunt, but what can I say? I won't be responsible for sending her back."
The doctor spoke angrily. He hated interfering in other people's business and he thought it exceedingly probable that an old gentleman living by himself might strongly object to having a girl child foisted upon him for an indefinite period.
"It seems to me," said Mr. Wycherly mildly, "that it would be criminal stupidity to allow her to go back."
The doctor looked rather astonished.
"But what's to become of the child?" he asked.
"Surely there is nothing to prevent her remaining here with her aunt, and when she is strong enough are there not good schools in Oxford?"
The doctor picked up his white hat. "Of course," he said, "if you have no objection to her remaining here the whole thing is perfectly simple, but I understood from her aunt that the arrangement was the child was only to be here in her holidays, and she seemed sadly afraid of trespassing upon your good-nature in keeping her here so long as it is. She's a very decent, honest woman, but——"
Mr. Wycherly rose and rang the bell to summon Mrs. Dew.
And the end of it all was that somebody wrote to Lord Dursley. Jane-Anne's "nomination" at the Bainbridge was presented to a girl whose physique was more deserving, and his lordship, instead of being annoyed, as Mrs. Dew had feared, at Jane-Anne's failure to benefit from his good intentions on her behalf, declared himself quite ready to pay for her "schooling" in Oxford whenever that fidgetty fellow, the doctor, should consider her able for instruction.