“It would be possible to avoid the obnoxious bed, would not it?” say I, laughing a little. “Where does it lie? Windermere? Ulleswater? Wastwater? Where?”
“We were at Ulleswater,” she says, speaking rapidly, while a hot colour grows on her small white cheeks—“Papa, mamma, and I; and there came a mesmeriser to Penrith, and we went to see him—everybody did—and he asked leave to mesmerise me—he said I should be such a good medium—and—and—I did not know what it was like. I thought it would be quite good fun—and—and—I let him.”
She is trembling exceedingly; even the loving pressure of my arms cannot abate her shivering.
“Well?”
“And after that I do not remember anything—I believe I did all sorts of extraordinary things that he told me—sang and danced, and made a fool of myself—but when I came home I was very ill, very—I lay in bed for five whole weeks, and—and was off my head, and said odd and wicked things that you would not have expected me to say—that dreadful bed! shall I ever forget it?”
“We will not go to the Lakes,” I say, decisively, “and we will not talk any more about mesmerism.”
“That is right,” she says, with a sigh of relief, “I try to think about it as little as possible; but sometimes, in the dead black of the night, when God seems a long way off, and the devil near, it comes back to me so strongly—I feel, do not you know, as if he were there—somewhere in the room, and I must get up and follow him.”
“Why should not we go abroad?” suggest I, abruptly turning the conversation.
“Why, indeed?” cries Elizabeth, recovering her gaiety, while her pretty blue eyes begin to dance. “How stupid of us not to have thought of it before; only abroad is a big word. What abroad?”
“We must be content with something short of Central Africa,” I say, gravely, “as I think our one hundred and fifty pounds would hardly take us that far.”