The woman stooped to brush a fly from George's forehead, and she answered with her head and eyes bent down.
"She says it is for the benefit of the child: that he gets more languid and fretful when we stay quietly in a place than when we are moving about. But in her anxiety, she a little overdoes it: there's a medium in all things. In some of the towns she has not liked the doctors, and then she has gone away immediately."
"I wish she would come back to Alnwick," lamented Mrs. Darling. "Pym knows the constitution of the St. Johns. No one could treat the child so well as he."
"I wish she would!" heartily acquiesced Prance. "I wish you could persuade her----"
Prance stopped, and hastily busied herself straightening George's petticoats. Mrs. St. John had entered the room.
But there was no persuading her to Alnwick--or to put a stop to this incessant travelling. Only a few days and she had quitted Belport again, taking her retinue with her, amidst whom was the nurse, Mrs. Brayford.
How strangely do the links in that chain we call fate, fit themselves one into the other, unconsciously to ourselves.
[CHAPTER XXII.]
ALL ABOUT A STUPID FRENCH MARIGOLD
The invitation sent to the young ladies by Madame de Castella had been given at the pressing instigation of Adeline. The nervous, anxious tones of the little notes enclosed from herself, praying them to accept it, at once proved the fact to Mary Carr.