“I don’t know that I am afraid. But I should not run into it by choice. And I’m sure you ought not to.”
We were just then passing that large druggist’s shop that the Squire always called Featherstonhaugh’s—just because Mr. Featherstonhaugh once kept it. Helen darted across the street and into it.
“A pound of camphor,” said she, to the young man behind the right-hand counter.
“A pound of camphor!” he echoed. “Did you say a pound, ma’am?”
“Is it too much?” asked Helen. “I want some to put about me: I am going to see some one who is ill.”
It ended in his giving her two ounces. As we left the shop she handed part of it to me, stowing the rest about herself. And whether it was thanks to the camphor, I don’t know, but neither of us took any harm.
“There. You can’t grumble now, Johnny Ludlow.”
Paradise Row, as every one knows, is right at the other end of the town, past the Tything. We had nearly reached the house when a gentleman, who looked like a doctor, came out of it.
“I beg your pardon,” said Helen, accosting him as he met us, and coughing to hide her agitation, “but we think—seeing you come out of the house—that you may be attending Mr. Leafchild. Is he better?”
The doctor looked at us both, and shook his head as he answered—