"Ah!" said the child, "when I'm grown up I'll marry a man with lots of money, just like Mr. Vavasour. Hannah says he's awfully rich; and then he should take us away to a lovely place by the sea-side where Mamma and all of us could live like princesses. I am sure she would get well then."
This innocent remark of Sarah's was a home-thrust to Amy; a death blow to her hopes, and roused her at once. Should she sit so quietly and passively when her mother's life was at stake? Nurse and hoard up a love in her heart that she was ashamed had ever entered there from its very hopelessness and selfishness? There was Dr. Ashley coming up the walk, she would first ask his opinion as to the necessity of a change; and if he thought it necessary? Then—then. Once again Amy sighed, and said, "It is my fate; it must be so," and then went out into the other room, and quietly awaited the doctor's coming.
Some ten minutes elapsed, during which Amy was restless and anxious; still she would not pause to think now, lest her heart should give way; so she walked about even as Frances Strickland often did in her impatient moods, took up the books one by one off the table and looked at their titles—read them she could not—and then the doctor's heavy tread sounded on the staircase, and she went out and met him.
"Will you come in here, Dr. Ashley?" she said. "I want to thank you for so kindly coming to see Mamma. It is so very kind of you." Amy knew nothing of the ten pound note so carefully stowed away in his waistcoat pocket for the expenses of his homeward journey.
"Pray say no more, my dear Miss Neville," he said. "It pains me."
And Amy did not. Perhaps she thought it was painful to be thanked for what in her innermost heart she half suspected he was paid for.
"How did you find Mamma, Dr. Ashley?" she asked.
"Well, not quite so bright as yesterday, but still no material change for the worse. Dr Sellon tells me she often has these ups and downs."
"Any unusual excitement appears to weaken her for the time. Dr. Sellon does not attend regularly. I only call him in when I think Mamma really requires it."
"Quite right. Your mother's case is one requiring care and—and everything good and strengthening you can give her."