“Would it do for me to write a note? I could write it to the sister I know?” asked Claudia.
Lady Mildred hesitated.
“Yes,” she replied; “I dare say you might.”
“And, my lady,” said Mrs Ball, “I’ll have the young gentleman carried up-stairs and put to bed. It will be just as well for him to find himself there when he quite wakes up, as it were.”
Lady Mildred stooped again and looked at the boy closely. His eyes were closed. She saw nothing that struck her in the little thin pale face, for it was the blue eyes that were its one beauty—the very blue eyes characteristic of the Osberts.
“Very well. Come to the drawing-room, Claudia, and write the note. I should think the groom will be back directly. I will see the child again after the doctor has been.”
“Aunt Mildred is really kind,” thought Claudia. But she had to exercise considerable self-control during the writing of the note. She would have made it friendly and hearty in tone, but this did not suit Lady Mildred’s ideas at all, and it was a rather stiff and formal production when finished, ending with a half-permission, half-invitation to the boy’s parents to come and see him the next morning.
“My aunt feels sure the doctor will wish your brother to stay in bed all to-morrow,” wrote Claudia, “and he will be taken every care of. But should Mr and Mrs Waldron feel uneasy, she begs them not to hesitate to come to see him for themselves.”
The doctor came, and confirmed the good account of the patient which Mrs Ball had already sent down-stairs.
“He will take no harm I fancy,” he said. “But he is evidently a delicate child, and he has had a narrow escape. He would have been dead long before morning.”