Working thus, furiously, at the task of love, which, in all it does for the youth it cherishes, must ever be digging a grave for its own delight, Bell could forget, for periods, that the days of Bud’s presence in their midst were numbered. Had she stopped her needle and shears a moment, and let her mind contemplate all the emptiness of a fortnight hence and the months and years thereafter, she would have broken down. Ailie, knowing it, watched her anxiously, and kept the sewing briskly going as if they wrought for a living in a factory, frightened to think of her sister’s desperate state when that last button, that the Armies talk about, was in its place.
But the days sped: one afternoon there was a final sweeping up of the scraps in the temporary workroom, Bell searched her mind in vain to think of anything further wanted, and, though there were still two weeks to go, became appalled to find that the only thing of any moment to be done ’twixt now and Friday fortnight was to say Good-bye!
No, stay! There was another thing to bring a little respite—the girl’s initials must be sewn upon her clothing. A trivial thing to mention, you may think, but the very thought of it gave pleasure to the sisters, till Bud herself, sent to Miss Minto’s for a sample of the woven letters, came back with only one—it was a W.
“Has the stupid body not got L’s and D’s?” asked Bell. “There’s no use here for W.” And Bud showed a countenance startled and ashamed.
“Oh, Auntie!” she cried, “I asked for W’s. I quite forgot my name was Lennox Dyce, for in all I’m thinking of about the school and Edinburgh, I am Winifred Wallace.”
It was all that was needed to bring about her aunt’s prostration! “I’m far from well,” said she, and took to her bed, her first confession of weakness in all the years that Dan or Ailie could remember. What ailed her she could not tell, and they sent, without acquainting her, for Dr Brash. Hearing he was coming, she protested that she could not see the man—that she was far too ill to be troubled by any doctor; but Dr Brash was not so easily to be denied.
“H’m!” said he, examining her. “Your system’s badly down.”
“I never knew I had one,” said the lady, smiling wanly, with a touch of Dan’s rowan-jelly humour. “Women had no system in my young days to go up or down: if they had, they were ashamed to mention it. Nowadays, it seems as fashionable as what Kate, since she got her education, calls the boil.”
“You have been worrying,” he went on,—“a thing that’s dreadfully injudicious. H’m! worse than drink, I say. Worry’s the death of half my patients; they never give my pills a chance,” and there was a twinkle in his eyes which most of Dr Brash’s patients thought was far more efficacious than his pills.
“What would I worry for?” said Miss Bell. “I’m sure I have every blessing; goodness and mercy all my life.”