‘Oh, no, not at all strange,’ said Emily, with the calm of superior knowledge. ‘The more your mind is taken off yourself, the less you suffer physically—except, perhaps, in the case of actual disease, and I am not sure that the rule does not apply there too. It is always good to have the mind carried away from the contemplation of itself.’
‘You have experience in such cases.’
‘Yes, I have great experience. I am matron of a hospital, and see it every day.’
‘Ah, that explains,’ said Mrs. Egerton, who had known this fact from the first glance. ‘Of course, with such a responsible post, you cannot give much time to—your relations.’
‘I can give none,’ said this calm, inscrutable woman. ‘I am going away to-night.’
‘To-night!’
‘Yes. I have been ten days here, and I think I’ve arranged everything comfortably. John, until a place has been found for him, will stay with his grandfather.’
‘John—oh, I suppose your—nephew. It is, no doubt, a good thing that he should be with his grandfather; but isn’t it a pity he should lose a good opening just for this; he must leave, one time or another.’
‘We did not feel, on thinking it over, that it was a very good opening,’ said Emily, with the same unalterable gravity. ‘The boy wishes to be a civil engineer; and this was an engine-foundry, mechanical engineering, not what he wants——’
‘But it was Mr. Cattley’s brother, a man who would have taken an interest——’