“By no means, my dear love,” replied the elder one, “I am just coming to it,” and from the folds of her mantle—a good but old-fashioned affair, as was every part of their attire—she produced a phial, neatly wrapped up, which she carefully unfolded. “This is a very excellent preparation,” she continued, “for external application—external. If Dr Meeke has not called this morning, pray suggest it to him when he does so. He knows it of old, though probably he did not think of it in the present case. We distil it ourselves—my sister and I—not having”—here she coughed a little—that tiny cough was her only sign of nervousness—“as we have not,” she resumed, “too much to do;” and here there came a little murmur about “a quiet country life,” “we amuse ourselves with these sorts of things—distilling, and so on. We take a great interest in herbs, and we have some rare ones.”
She tapped the little bottle as she spoke.
“There are some ingredients in here which are not to be met with every day,” she said, with a funny little tone of self-congratulation, “as Dr Meeke knows!”
I thanked her warmly, of course, promising to ask the doctor to let us make use of her gift at once.
“And is there anything else,” she went on, “that we can be of use in?” While from the sofa there came a little echo of—“Yes, so glad to be of use!”
I considered for a moment. It was so plainly to be seen that these good creatures would feel real pleasure in their offer being literally accepted.
“New milk,” murmured Miss Beatrice, “to keep up his strength. It did wonders for our dear Caryll, long ago, when he—injured his spine. New milk with a spoonful of rum, first thing in the morning on waking.”
Miss Grey—Miss Jessie I feel inclined to call her—turned a little sharply on her younger sister.
“My dear Beatrice,” she exclaimed, “you forget. Everything of that kind of course is at Miss—Fitzmaurice’s command.”
“To be sure,” was the reply. “Still—”