"Look at these Lent lilies, Miss Laura. They will be out in two days at most."
Laura bent over them, then suddenly drew herself erect. The doctor felt the stiffening of the little arm.
"I suppose you had sheets of them in the north," he said innocently, as he poked a stone away from the head of an emerging hyacinth.
"Yes—a great many." She looked absently straight before her, taking no more notice of the flowers.
"Well—and Mrs. Fountain? Are you really anxious?"
The girl hesitated.
"She is ill—quite ill. I ought to see her somehow."
"Well, my dear, go!" He looked round upon her with a cheerful decision.
"No—that isn't possible," she said quietly. "But I might stay somewhere near. She must have lost a great deal of strength since Christmas."
At Christmas and for some time afterwards, she and Mrs. Fountain had been at St. Leonard's together. In fact, it was little more than a fortnight since Laura had parted from her stepmother, who had shown a piteous unwillingness to go back alone to Bannisdale.