But Mrs. Fairchild shook her head, smiling.
'I must go home,' she said. 'At the latest I must go home by ten o'clock. It will be all right till then. I can trust Celestina to see to her father's breakfast and everything, and there's not much doing in the shop before then. Celestina will have let Miss Neale know not to come.'
'How well you have brought your little girl up—how thoughtful and womanly she is; and to think that she is only a year or two older than Bridget!' said Mrs. Vane sadly.
'It has not been exactly my doing,' Celestina's mother replied. 'I often think the very things I would have wished different for her have been the best training. She has had to be helpful and thoughtful; she has had her own duties and share of responsibility almost all her life.'
'Biddy never feels responsible for anything—not even for learning her lessons or being ready for meals,' said her mother.
'Well, that is just what wants awaking in her. This lesson may show her that even a child is responsible, that a child may cause sad trouble. One would rather she had learnt it the other way, but it may be what she needed.'
Mrs. Vane sighed. She wanted to be patient, but she could hardly bring herself to feel that a lesson which was to cost Biddy's father such suffering, nay, even to risk his life perhaps, would not be too dearly bought.
The doctor came, but he was not much more outspoken than the night before. Biddy was to be kept very quiet, the more she could sleep the better; as for Mr. Vane, he hoped it would not be rheumatic fever, but it was plain he feared it. And he advised Mrs. Vane to get a trained nurse.
A trying time followed. For some days it seemed almost certain that Mr. Vane was in for rheumatic fever; in the end he just managed to escape it, but he was sadly weakened, and the cough, which had disappeared since his coming to Seacove, began again. It would be weeks before he could leave his room.
And Biddy, too, did not get well as had been expected. She lay there white and silent as if she did not want to get better, only seeming thoroughly to wake up when she asked, as she did at least every two hours, how papa was, and sinking back again when the usual answer came of 'No better,' or 'Very little better.' Her mother was very kind to her, but she could not be much with Biddy, and perhaps it was as well, for it would have been almost impossible for her to hide for long her great unhappiness about Mr. Vane.