"She has come to fetch me away," said Sarah. "And she came unexpectedly, because she wanted to see for herself whether mamma was really ill, or whether she was only shamming."
"Sarah!"
"And she has decided she is only shamming," said Sarah. "Unluckily, mamma happened to be down in the stables, doctoring Venus. You remember Venus, her pet spaniel?"
"Of course."
"Nothing else would have taken me off my sofa, where I ought to be lying at this moment, as you know very well, Sarah," cried Mrs. Hewel, showing an inclination to shed tears.
"To be sure you ought," said Sarah; "but what is the use of telling Aunt Elizabeth that, when she saw you with her own eyes racing up and down the stable-yard, with a piece of raw meat in your hand, and Venus galloping after you."
"The vet said that if she took no exercise she would die," said Mrs. Hewel, tearfully, "and neither he nor Jones could get her to move. Not even Ash, though he has known her all her life. I know it was very bad for me; but what could I do?"
"I wish I had been there," said Sarah, giggling; "but, however, Aunt Elizabeth described it all to me so graphically this morning that it is almost as good as though I had been."
"She should not have come down like that, without giving us a notion," said Mrs. Hewel, resentfully.
"If she had only warned us, you could have been lying on a sofa, with the blinds down, and I could have been holding your hand and shaking a medicine-bottle," said Sarah. "That is how she expected to find us, she said, from your letters."