"No. She told me she would not give me a drop of wine if I paid her for it in gold. I cried about it, I was so disappointed and thirsty. What with the flurry and excitement there has been all the morning, and,--papa and mamma's anxiety, my spirits were low, and I actually cried. But she would not give it me. She brought me some toast-and-water, and said she was going to make me something nice, better than wine. There she is, coddling at it over the fire--very nice I dare say it is!"
Mrs. Brayford came forward, and whispered Miss Carr to take her leave. Talking was bad for Mademoiselle de Castella.
"Farewell, dearest Adeline! I shall soon come to see you again. I know I shall find you better."
She was halfway across the room when Adeline called to her. The nurse, who was again leaning over her saucepan, looked up, a remonstrance in her eye if not on her tongue, but Miss Carr returned.
"Mary," she whispered, "go in to mamma, assure her, convince her, that I am not so ill as she fears: that it is her love for me which has magnified the danger."
"Oh, it's nothing," cried Rose Darling, slightingly, when Miss Carr carried the tale of Adeline's illness back to school. "She will soon be well."
"Or die," said Mary Carr.
"Die! You are as absurd as the French doctors, Mary. As if people died of a little night visiting! I wish they would let me run the risk!"
"If you had seen the house today, and Madame de Castella----"
"I am glad I did not," interrupted Rose; "such scenes are not to my taste. And nothing at all to judge by. The French are always in extremes--ecstasies or despair. So much the better for them. They feel the less."