Sir Adam laughed. "Hopley will do best," he said. "And then you know, doctor, if--if the worst comes to the worst; that is, the worst so far as sickness is concerned, I can be carried out as Hopley."
"What do you think of him, Mr. Moore?" enquired Karl gravely when the interview was over.
"I will tell you more about it when I have seen more of him," was the surgeon's answer. But his face and tone both assumed, or seemed to Karl to assume, an ominous shade as he gave it.
[CHAPTER XIX.]
rs. Cleeve at Fault.
Mrs. Cleeve was at Foxwood. She had been staying in London with her sister, Lady Southal, and took the opportunity to come down to see her daughter. Lucy's appearance startled her. As is well known, we are slow to discern any personal change either for the better or the worse in those with whom we live in daily intercourse: it requires an absence of days or weeks, as the case may be, to perceive it in all its naked reality. Mrs. Cleeve saw what none around Lucy had seen--at least, to the extent--and it shocked and alarmed her. The face was a sad, drawn face; dark rims encircled the sweet brown eyes; the whole air and bearing were utterly spiritless.
"What can be the matter with you, my dear?" questioned Mrs. Cleeve, seizing on the first opportunity that they were alone together.
"The matter with me, mamma!" returned Lucy, making believe not to understand why the question should be put: though her face flushed to hectic. "Nothing is the matter with me."
"There most certainly is, Lucy; with your health or with your mind. You could not be as you are, or look as you do unless there were."
"I suffered a great deal from the heat," said poor Lucy.