“The doctor to see father,” explained Helen. “I ought to go.”
“Excuse me, my dear, I particularly wish to see your father’s medical adviser this morning. I will not detain him long, but I have a question I wish to put to him. You stay with your little sister, Helen. I shall be back soon.”
Mrs. Cameron trotted out of the room. In about ten minutes, with an exultant look on her face, she returned. Firefly was now clasped tightly in Helen’s arms while she sobbed her heart out on her breast.
“Well, Helen, has this most impertinent, naughty child confessed?”
“She has not,” said Helen. “I don’t understand her; she seems in sore trouble. Dear little Fly!”
“‘Dear little Fly,’ indeed! Naughty, wicked little Fly, you mean. However, my dear, I have come to tell you that I have just had an interview with the excellent doctor who attends your father. He has gone up to see him now. He says he does not want to see you at all to-day, Helen. Well, I spoke to Dr. Strong, and he was astonished—absolutely astonished, when he heard that I had not yet been permitted to see my brother-in-law. I told him quite frankly that you girls were jealous of my influence, and used his (Dr. Strong’s) name to keep me out of my poor brother’s room. ‘But my dear madam,’ he said, ‘the young ladies labor under a mistake—a vast, a monstrous mistake. Nothing could do my poor patient more good than to see a sensible, practical lady like yourself!’ ‘Then I may see him this afternoon?’ I asked. ‘Undoubtedly, Mrs. Cameron,’ he replied; ‘it will be something for my patient to look forward to.’ I have arranged then, my dear Helen, to pay a visit to your father at three o’clock to-day.”
Helen could not repress a sigh.
Mrs. Cameron raised her eyebrows with a certain suggestive and aggravating gesture.
“Ah, my dear,” she said, “you must try to keep under that jealous temperament. Jealousy fostered in the heart overshadows and overclouds all life. Be warned in time.”
“About this child,” said Helen, drawing Firefly forward, “what is to be done about her? You will be lenient, won’t you, Aunt Maria, for she is very young?”